Three in ten Canadians believe 2016 was a horrible year, a new Ipsos poll has found, with reasons ranging from personal finance to world events.
About two thirds of Canadians don’t think 2016 was any better than other years, and about nine per cent think it was a better-than-average year.
When asked what made the respondents say it was a bad year, the reasons ranged from personal finance to general world affairs.
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Fifty-eight per cent of respondents said there are too many terrible things happening in the world, and 48 per cent of them are worried about their pocketbooks.
Others cited a shaky Canadian economy (42 per cent), a troubled family life (32 per cent), job and career issues (29 per cent) and the deaths of many celebrities (25 per cent).
Sean Simpson, VP of Public Affairs for Ipsos Canada, pointed out that the individual numbers are similar to a 2015 poll on the same topic – it’s just when you look at it as a whole it gets a little bleaker.
“It means that 2016 wasn’t a horrible year necessarily because of what’s happening personally, but because of all of the things in totality that have been going on around Canadians and around the world,” he explained.
“I think it’s very telling that when we ask people why they thought that 2016 was such a bad year, the most common response was just all of these things that are happening in the world from Syria and Aleppo, terrorist attacks and of course the election of Donald Trump.”
He said that the recent news cycle may still be fresh in people’s minds.
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“As we’re coming to the end of the year when we’re assessing, it’s likely that you’re thinking more of what happened recently then, you know, January, February or March or example,” he said.
If you break it down by province, Alberta leads the way.
Nearly half (46 per cent) of Albertans consider 2016 a “horrible year,” compared to only 19 per cent of Quebecers.
Alberta respondents are driven by the economy, Simpson explained. He also said Quebecers get a different perspective from the rest of Canada because of the language differences.
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“They have different sources of news, it could just be that their awareness of what’s going on in the world is a little bit different, their awareness of what’s going on in Canada is of a different blend from the rest of us here in English Canada,” he explained.
And when you break it down by age, younger Canadians are the ones who are the most disappointed in 2016; a third of respondents aged 18-35 said 2016 sucked. Only about a quarter of other age groups said the same.
Canadians are mostly happy with their personal lives
According to the poll, most Canadians are happy and healthy, but “fewer are pleased with their financial situation or their sex/romantic life,” compared to a similar poll from five years ago.
Eighty per cent of respondents are “happy,” which is down 2 points from 2011. Our health has taken a bit of a slide with 79 per cent enjoying good health (down 5 points since 2011).
62 per cent are satisfied with their money matters (up 1 point), but fewer are happy with their sex and romantic lives at 61% (down 3 point).
*with files from Rahul Kavapalle
This Ipsos poll on behalf of Global News was an online survey of 3,004 Canadians conducted between Dec. 15-21, 2016. The results were weighted to better reflect the composition of the adult Canadian population, according to census data. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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