Previous research has shown that satisfaction with political institutions and trust in political actors in Canada has gradually been rising over the past decade. This report pushes this analysis deeper, by focusing not only on the national trend, but on sub-national ones as well. The results show that the patterns are not consistent, with satisfaction with democracy and trust in political actors growing in some regions of the country and falling in others. These counteracting regional trends are obscured when they are subsumed under the national average, creating the potential for emerging fault lines in the Canadian federation to be overlooked.
The detailed findings offer both some reassurance and a clear warning for those concerned with national unity in Canada. It is reassuring that confidence in Canada’s political system in Quebec is not significantly lower than average. This is notable, given Quebec’s status as a minority nation within the larger Canadian federal state. Quebec’s distinctiveness as a minority nation within Canada is evident in the survey data, but only on questions that touch on how Quebecers identify themselves, and not those related to confidence in the county’s political system.
Survey Details
The data analyzed in this report are drawn from the Canadian and U.S. portions of the AmericasBarometer surveys. The AmericasBarometer is a recurring study conducted approximately every two years, covering 23 countries spanning the Western Hemisphere. In Canada, the surveys of approximately 1,500 adults were conducted online five times over the past decade: in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2019. Since 2012, the Canadian surveys were conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research.1 Data from the U.S. surveys of approximately 1,500 American adults were obtained from the Latin American Public Opinion Project.
The AmericasBarometer surveys include a variety of questions related to confidence in the political system. These questions ask about satisfaction with, pride in, support for, respect for, trust in and approval of different political institutions or actors. Many of these questions ask respondents to express the extent of their agreement or trust on a 7-point scale. In these cases, this report will look at expressions of strong agreement or strong trust, which combine responses of six and seven on the scale, or low agreement or low trust, which combine responses of one and two.
Media
The AmericasBarometer surveys measure trust in a range of political institutions and actors on a seven-point scale. Here is a summary of the most recent results for Canada, showing the trend since 2010.
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