Canada Day is just around the corner, but many Canadians aren’t necessarily in the mood to celebrate the state of the country, a new survey suggests.
An Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News shows that 70 percent of Canadians agree that “Canada is broken,” an accusation that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre repeatedly makes.
“He’s capturing a mood. It’s not something Pierre Poilievre created. He’s simply identifying the conditions he sees in the Canadian public and calling them out and labelling them,” said Darrell Bricker, executive director of public affairs at Ipsos.
Ipsos surveyed 1,001 Canadians between June 12 and 14 and found that feelings of pessimism were highest among Canadians aged 18 to 34, with 78 per cent saying the country needs improvement.
Bricker says the responses point to bigger frustrations.
“Do people feel like their country is broken? No. They feel more like their institutions are broken and they have lost a sense of unity,” Bricker said.
The pollster, who has been measuring Canadian public opinion for 35 years, says it is the worst picture he has seen and that “people don’t feel like they are succeeding in life these days, as they should.”
Bricker says the millennial voting bloc, which appears to be the most disillusioned demographic, is increasingly gravitating toward Poilievre, despite Trudeau’s promise in this year’s federal budget to introduce policies that help with “generational fairness.”
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“Older Canadians tend to be a little bit more optimistic about what the country has been like because it’s worked for them. But younger Canadians… they’re the ones who say, ‘You know, it’s not working for me,’” Bricker said.
“And as a result, they are looking for change, and the agent of change in this particular situation is for them the Conservative Party.”
How frustration manifested itself at the polls
Poilievre has led the polls for more than a year and this week his party scored a surprising victory in the Toronto-St. Paul’s, once considered a safe seat for the Liberals.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held an event in Brampton, Ontario, on Thursday and criticized his Conservative rival and his mantra.
“Pierre Poilievre is going around saying that Canada is bankrupt. He is doing this for his own interests because he wants to be elected,” Trudeau said.
But the prime minister has not taken questions since the Liberals’ loss in the Toronto-St. Paul by-election.
The surprise defeat has raised questions about his political future. An Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News earlier this month found that support for him is close to “hitting rock bottom,” with nearly seven in 10 Canadians saying it’s time for Trudeau to step down.
While his cabinet ministers say he should keep his seat, they acknowledge that losing the Toronto-St. Paul riding is a major setback.
“Seeing the Conservatives win in (Toronto)-St. Paul means everything we’re working on could be thrown in the trash. And that doesn’t worry me because I’m a liberal. That worries me because I’m Canadian,” Health Minister Mark Holland said in announcing an expansion of the dental care program on Thursday.
A day earlier, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he could understand that Canadians might be “tired of the current government” after eight years, but Miller insists Poilievre is “weaponizing” public anger and called him “a fraud.”
“He doesn’t present any concrete vision for Canada that I support. The guy is full of slogans. Most people don’t really know what they mean. They may be catchy, but he reminds me of a wrestling director from the 80s,” said the Immigration Minister.
Is the political climate weakening on July 1?
The Ipsos poll also found that Canadians are less enthusiastic about Canada Day celebrations and national pride than in the past.
The survey asked whether respondents were more or less likely to display a Canadian flag or attend an event to mark July 1 compared with five years ago, and whether they were more or less likely to say they were proud to be Canadian compared with then.
Thirty-two per cent said they were less likely to attend an event and 16 per cent said they were more likely to do so, while 28 per cent said they were less likely to fly a Canadian flag and 16 per cent said they were more likely to do so.
According to Ipsos, 35 per cent of respondents said they are now less likely to say they are proud to be Canadian than they were five years ago. Sixteen per cent said they were more likely now than they were then.
“There’s a general feeling that there’s really no one celebrating our country the way we used to,” Bricker said.
But he also warned against buying easy solutions.
“This is going to be a challenge for any political leader. It will also be a challenge for Pierre Poilievre. It is one thing to denounce it. It is quite another thing to do something about it,” Bricker said.
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