Young Canadians feeling the least satisfied with Canada: Nanos survey

Canadians’ satisfaction with Canada as a country continues to decline, especially when it comes to perceptions of our political institutions, and young Canadians of all age groups have the most pessimistic view of the nation.

(Data source: Nanos Research)

A new one Nanos Research national survey found that nearly two in three Canadians (64 per cent) say they are satisfied with Canada as a country.

That’s a 10 percent drop from just two years ago, when 74 percent of Canadians expressed satisfaction with the country.

When it comes to grade point average, or group average, we’re now 6.6 out of 10, up from 7.2 in 2021.

• Average score for 2023: 6.6
• 2022 GPA: 6.8
• 2021 GPA: 7.2

“[It’s] not a big unit,” said the Nanos research chair Nick Nanos On the latest episode of CTV News Trend Line. “What we’re seeing is basically a decline or decline in the proportion of Canadians who feel satisfied with the country.”

YOUNG CANADIANS

That decline is even steeper when looking at Canadians under 35, for whom the score drops to 5.8.

“Put this into context… the national report card right now would be a C. Canadians would give Canada a C on the satisfaction front. But for those under 35, that C grade drops to a D,” Nanos said. .

Politically, this could be bad news for the minority Liberals, who have been trending lower when it comes to supporting Nanos’ weekly vote tracking.

The low score for the 35-and-under age group should be particularly troubling to the Liberals, who inspired large numbers of young Canadians to turnout. 2015 federal electionNanos said. In those elections, the participation of 18 to 24 voters increased by more than 18 percentage points, making 57.1 percent.

“I think if you were to fast forward from 2015 to 2023, young people would be the most pessimistic, young people would be the least satisfied, you’d probably be very surprised,” Nanos said.

“Young people are usually the most optimistic and positive because they are healthy, starting to find work and at the beginning of their earning cycle… so those numbers [young] Canadians and their satisfaction levels are absolutely brutal.”

THE “BROKEN” STORY

And this cloud of pessimism has not gone unnoticed by politicians, including Conservative leader Pierre Poulevre, who appears to be using it to his advantage. According to Nanos, when Polyevre says Canada looks “broken” as he did november last year and it happened again january — it’s a message that resonates with Canadians.

The strategy seems to be to lay the blame for our inflation-fueled grocery bills, our overburdened health care system and everything else that burdens Canadians at the Prime Minister’s feet.

Polievre is trying to portray the Liberals as directly “responsible for breaking Canada,” says Nanos, a stark contrast to past opposition leaders.

“Usually they basically say that the government of the day is not doing very well, that they are incompetent and [are] drop the ball,” Nanos said. “In this particular case, Pierre Poulevre is saying that the Liberals bear special responsibility for breaking Canada, and this is a whole new level of rhetoric that we’re seeing on the opposition benches.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, did not turn the other cheek to Polievre’s accusation.

“Let me be clear for the record. Canada is not broken,” he said December speechreversing Polievre’s claim while accusing the Conservative leader of fueling conspiracy theories and avoiding tough questions from reporters.

HOW DO WE VIEW OUR NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS?

The Nanos survey also asked what Canadians think about our key institutions and how they contribute to Canada, including politics, education, health care, law enforcement and arts and cultural organizations.

The survey found that Canadians believe our universities (average score of 7.3) and our health care system (7.0) are Canada’s top contributors. But they rate our political institutions, including the House of Commons (5.7), the Prime Minister (4.9), the Senate (4.1) and the Governor-General (3.6), as the lowest-scoring contributors.

(Data source: Nanos Research)

Watch the full episode of Trend Line in our video player at the top of this article. You can also listen in our audio player below or wherever you get your podcasts. The next episode will be published on Wednesday March 29, the day after the federal budget is released.