A Better Canada: Values and Priorities after COVID-19

Five months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the Environics Institute for Survey Research and the Vancouver City Savings credit union joined forces to conduct a comprehensive study of public opinion about what Canadians are expecting from their governments, from corporations and from one another. The survey covers how Canadians were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, their economic outlook, and their expectations of both governments and businesses. By building extensively on the results of previous surveys conducted over the past several years, and even decades, this new study sets out to explore whether and how Canadian attitudes have changed in the wake of the pandemic.

The survey finds that there is widespread public support for a range of reforms, from providing quality long-term care for the elderly, to covering all essential medicines through public drug plans, to making sure employees can take paid sick days when they need to, to making affordable and high-quality daycare for young children available to all parents who need it, to reducing the income gap between the rich and the poor. There is also ample evidence to suggest that, for many, the eventual reopening of the economy should mean something better than going “back to normal.”

A Better Canada was conducted by the Environics Institute and Vancity in August of 2020. The survey of 3,008 Canadians was carried out online between August 17 and 24, 2020.