Canadians’ satisfaction with Canada as a country continues to decline, especially when it comes to perceptions of our political institutions, and younger Canadians have the bleakest view of the nation out of all age groups.
(Data source: Nanos Research)
A new Nanos Research national survey found that about two in three Canadians (64 per cent) say they’re satisfied with Canada as a country.
That’s a decrease of 10 per cent compared to just two years ago, when 74 per cent of Canadians expressed satisfaction with the country.
When it comes to the mean score – or the average of the group of scores – we’re at 6.6 out of 10 now, versus 7.2 in 2021.
2023 mean score: 6.6
2022 mean score: 6.8
2021 mean score: 7.2
“[It’s] not a great score,” said Nanos Research Chair Nik Nanos on the latest episode of CTV News Trend Line. “What we’re seeing is basically a decline, or a drop, in the proportion of Canadians who feel satisfied about the country.”
YOUNG CANADIANS
That decline is even steeper when we look at Canadians under the age of 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 individuals that are under 35 years of age, that C grade drops to a D,” said Nanos.
Politically, this could be bad news for the minority Liberals, who are trending downward when it comes to support in Nanos’ weekly ballot tracking.
The poor score for the 35-and-under age group should be especially troubling for the Liberals, who inspired a huge turnout amount young Canadians in the 2015 federal election, said Nanos. In that election, the participation of voters 18 to 24 increased by over 18 percentage points to 57.1 per cent.
“I think if you had said fast forward from 2015 to 2023, that young people would be the most pessimistic, that young people would be the least satisfied, you’d probably be very surprised,” said Nanos.
“Young people are usually the most optimistic and positive because they’re healthy, they’re starting to get jobs and they’re at the beginning of their earnings cycle … so those numbers for [young] Canadians and their level of satisfaction is absolutely brutal.”
THE ‘BROKEN’ NARRATIVE
And this cloud of pessimism has not gone unnoticed by politicians, including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who seems to be using it to gain an advantage. According to Nanos, when Poilievre says Canada seems “broken”—as he did in November last year and repeated again in January — it’s a message that resonates with Canadians.
The strategy seems to be to lay the blame for our inflation-fuelled sky-high grocery bills, our overburdened health-care system, and everything else weighing Canadians down, at the feet of the prime minister.
Poilievre is trying to paint Liberals as directly “responsible for breaking Canada,” said Nanos, which is a sharply different tactic from opposition leaders in the past.
“Usually they just basically say that the government of the day doesn’t do a very good job, that they’re incompetent and [are] dropping the ball,” said Nanos. “In this particular case, what Pierre Poilievre is saying is that the Liberals are specifically responsible for breaking Canada, and this is a whole new level of rhetoric that we’re seeing on the opposition bench.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, didn’t turn the other cheek to Poilievre’s accusation.
“Let me be clear for the record: Canada is not broken,” he said in a December speech, turning Poilievre’s claim on its head while accusing the Conservative leader of amplifying conspiracy theories and avoiding tough questions from journalists.
HOW WE VIEW OUR NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
The Nanos survey also asked what Canadians think of our major institutions and how they contribute to Canada, including those in the political sphere, education, health care, law enforcement and arts and cultural organizations.
The survey found Canadians think our universities (mean score of 7.3) and our health-care system (7.0) are top major contributors to Canada. 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 having the lowest scores on the list of 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 comes out Wednesday, March 29, the day after the federal budget is released.
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
(Data source: Nanos Research)
(Data source: Nanos Research)
