Democracy and the fairness of elections in Canada

The AmericasBarometer 2025 Survey in Canada provides an opportunity to measure support for democracy and elections in Canada in the aftermath of the spring election campaign. The biennial study has been tracking satisfaction with democracy, using a consistent method, since 2010, with additional questions on trust in elections added since then.

This year, the survey finds that the level of satisfaction with the way democracy works in Canada has seen a modest increase, while overall trust in elections has held stable. However, it also finds that fewer Canadians are confident that votes are always counted fairly in Canada, or that foreign governments never influence our election results.

Satisfaction with democracy, trust in elections, and the sense that votes are always counted fairly, have all declined steadily and significantly among Conservative Party supporters since the party lost power a decade ago – and in the context of four consecutive election losses. Despite this, seven in ten Conservative Party supporters continue to hold that “democracy is preferable to any other form of government,” and the same proportion agrees that “election results should be respected regardless of which candidate or party wins.”

Taken together, these results suggest that, while there may be growing frustration with aspects of the democratic process in Canada among opposition party supporters, this does not necessarily amount to a weakening of support for democracy itself. Yet, steps should be taken to reinforce overall public confidence in the way votes are received and counted (including mail-in ballots), and in the way candidate selection and elections are insulated from foreign interference.

The AmericasBarometer is a regular comparative survey of democratic values and behaviours that covers countries in North, Central and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean (the 2025-26 study will cover 20 countries). The project is led by the LAPOP Lab at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy (CGD). The Canadian survey was conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with CGD’s LAPOP Lab at Vanderbilt University and with the support of the Max Bell Foundation.

The survey was conducted online with a sample of 3,550 Canadians (aged 18 and over) between July 30 and August 7, 2025. The results are weighted by region, age, gender, education and language so as to be fully representative of the Canadian population.