Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research.
Nik Nanos is The Globe and Mail's pollster and chairman of Nanos Research. Follow him on Twitter at @niknanos.
We might be singing the Canadian dollar blues with economic clouds on the horizon but the polling suggests that the political mood is not sour and Canadians are more hopeful now than they have been since we began tracking mood in 2007.
Is Canada's current bout of political exuberance rational or irrational? Hard to say. Probably a little bit of both. It's quite rational when you consider we are in the wake of a "change election," but perhaps not as rational considering the potential slide in the Canadian economy.
Every year Nanos partners with the Institute for Research on Public Policy to capture the "Mood of Canada." Now in year nine of tracking, there are some very interesting trends that have emerged in the latest survey completed near the end of December and just released.
The research suggests that the Trudeau whirlwind charm offensive around the world has resulted in Canadians thinking that Canada's reputation around the globe is improving. Six of 10 Canadians believe that Canada's reputation is improving or somewhat improving – a 25-point jump in one year. Indeed, Justin Trudeau's numbers have surpassed Stephen Harper's numbers on the global reputation front for every year he was in power.
On the domestic front, one of two Canadians think that the relationship between the federal government and provincial governments is improving. Canadians now are three times more likely to say relations within the federation are improving compared with 2014 under Mr. Harper (a one-year increase from 16 per cent to 51 per cent).
Domestically and internationally the Trudeau change, so far, has converted into positive attitudes about how we feel about the federation and Canada in the world. The Liberal election campaign has hardly skipped a beat. Where the opposition parties have laid down their arms after their defeat, the Trudeau Liberals have ramped up to an even higher intensity with the nation and the globe as their stage. One can suppose that the only difference is that Mr. Trudeau is now campaigning as Prime Minister.
Asked to rate the performance of the federal government, six of 10 Canadians give a rating of very good or good – 23 points higher than Mr. Harper in 2014 and higher than Mr. Harper ever scored while in office.
The one comparable stat – when you stack Mr. Harper against Mr. Trudeau – is on right direction, wrong direction perceptions. Mr. Trudeau's numbers on this are at the same level as his predecessor when Mr. Harper won a majority government in 2011. In both instances more than six in 10 Canadians thought the country was moving in the right direction after the majority victories in 2011 and 2015.
The kicker on the numbers front relates to the views of Canadians in Alberta and Saskatchewan. On every single measure – although lower than the national average – one of two people in the Prairie hotbed of Conservatism give the Liberal Prime Minister the thumbs-up on every dimension of the political mood. This suggests that the politics of polarization which has driven political discourse in Canada is now back on its heels.
Even with these positive numbers for the Grits, watch for the collision of the post-election exuberance with the darker economic mood. This will likely be the first real test of the mettle of the new Trudeau government.