Volunteers sort through donated groceries at Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto on April 18.COLE BURSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Michael Adams is the founder and president of the Environics Institute for Survey Research. Andrew Parkin is the Institute’s executive director.
It was quite a year in Canada. Satisfaction with the federal government and the Prime Minister nosedived. The governing party was eclipsed in the polls by the Official Opposition. Public anxiety about the economy grew, and as it did, support for immigration weakened. Despite a global summit on the environment, the issue of climate change struggled to make it to the top of the political agenda. And lurking in the background were strains on national unity, as one key province took steps to advance its sovereignty in the face of perceived federal overreach.
The year we’re talking about, of course, is 1992. That year was characterized by escalating public unhappiness about the recession, the Constitution, and – for those focused on the Earth Summit in Rio – the environment. Dissatisfaction with Brian Mulroney’s government hit 82 per cent. An equal share of the public said they were worried about the country’s economic situation.
The point of this comparison is not to console the current Prime Minister with a reminder that he has predecessors who were less popular than he is today, but to offer broader reassurance that we can get through this. The public mood today is bleak, but it has been this bleak – and worse – before. Even if the governing Liberals may be in peril, the country itself is not.
Just how bad are things at the moment? Surveys conducted this year by the Environics Institute show a majority of Canadians are now dissatisfied with the direction in which the country is headed. A growing proportion feel the country’s economy and their own financial situation are both getting worse. The cost of living is the top issue on people’s minds, and concern about the availability of good jobs is creeping up as well. The proportion of Canadians worried about the amount of household debt they carry is also rising.
It has been argued by at least one writer in The Globe and Mail that the current economic situation “is not as bad as many seem to believe.” True, some things certainly are better now than in previous downturns. In 1992, for instance, the unemployment rate was twice as high as it is today, interest rates were also much higher, and inflation was only beginning to settle down. But this limited comparison misses two more specific concerns that came to the forefront in 2023: housing affordability and food security.
Our survey on housing affordability finds that, since the early 1990s, Canadians have become less optimistic about the prospects of home ownership – with the drop in optimism being much greater for younger Canadians. It also finds that, even among those who have managed to purchase a home with the help of a mortgage, many are now worrying about their ability to keep up with the payments. In 2023, as many as one in two homeowners under the age of 45 were worried about being able to afford to pay for the home they own.
As the cost of housing rises, there is less money left over to pay for other necessities. Earlier in 2023, we found that almost one in five Canadians had gone hungry at some point in the previous 12 months because they did not have enough money to buy food. The same proportion had sought help from a charity because they ran short of money. Yes, this – in Canada!
In retrospect, one of the most surprising things about this growth in dissatisfaction and insecurity is that it didn’t happen sooner, namely during the pandemic. It would have been reasonable to assume, back in the dramatic days of March, 2020, that the public’s mindset was about to be completely upended, but that calm would be restored once the emergency passed. Precisely the opposite happened. Despite job losses and school closings, our overall satisfaction with the direction of the country initially rose during the pandemic, particularly into mid-2021, as the initial vaccine campaign gained momentum. And Statistics Canada’s census report on income shows drops in poverty and inequality in 2020, as federal government emergency benefits kept many afloat. But things have soured since then, as hopes that we would manage to “build back better” have been dashed. We made it through the biggest public-health crisis in more than 100 years, only to be confronted not with a better world, but with a housing shortage, a nursing shortage, inflation and rising interest rates.
Oh, and the forests are on fire, the ice caps are melting and it seems much of the world is at war. Next door, Donald Trump is leading in the polls.
Finding ourselves in this situation, it might be helpful to draw on some lessons from that period 30 years ago when Canadian society was under even greater strain. Unfortunately, the first lesson is that things might get worse before they get better. As bad as things seemed in 1992, the political stress of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum was yet to come, as was the economic stress that stemmed from the severe federal and provincial budget cuts implemented from 1995 onward. Many have found 2023 to be a difficult year, but sick and tired as we may be, we nonetheless need to replenish our capacity for problem-solving and bridge-building. The issues confronting us are hardly going to resolve themselves.
A second lesson from the 1990s is more encouraging. We eventually got through that period of economic and political tumult with our fundamental values intact, if not strengthened. Despite fatigue with endless talk about the Constitution, the relatively new Charter of Rights and Freedoms emerged as a leading symbol of our identity, and as a driver of greater security and equality. The angst triggered by the shift to North American free trade faded away, as we found that, in practice, we could do more business with the Americans and become more culturally distinct from them at the same time. The decline in support for immigration registered during the recession of the early 1990s proved short-lived; by the end of that decade, attitudes dramatically reversed, and as a country we became more welcoming than ever.
In 2023, similar silver linings are not that hard to find. The recent drop in support for the number of immigrants admitted to Canada each year is tied to concerns about the economy and the availability of housing – but not to any reassessment of the contributions that immigrants make to our communities. Only 9 per cent of Canadians think immigrants make their communities a worse place to live. And almost no one (less than 1 per cent) insists that each of six different types of immigrant (such as high-skilled workers, refugees or students) should all be low priorities for admission to Canada. Public opinion reflects a demand to build more houses, not to raise the drawbridge.
Other findings from our surveys paint a similar picture of a society characterized more by open hearts than by closed minds. Three in four Canadians say economic inequality in the country is a big problem. A growing number recognize the seriousness of climate change. Four in five say multiculturalism has been good for Canada. Even more call on schools to teach students about Indigenous cultures and history. Talk of foreign political interference notwithstanding, most Canadians continue to trust elections in this country. The majority have some trust in other people in their community, and overall trust in public institutions survived the stresses of the pandemic more or less unchanged.
Given the challenges facing the country and the world, it would be foolish to greet the new year with unreserved optimism. We have no idea when any of today’s wars will end or who will be the victor, or indeed how many new ones might break out. This coming year could see Donald Trump either imprisoned or re-elected – or both. At home, countless mortgages are coming up for renewal, probably at higher rates of interest, placing further strains on family finances. And in 2024, there will be storms, floods and fires to contend with as the planet gets hotter still.
The only reassurance we can offer is that, if past experience is anything to go by, Canadians will find some way to get through this with their penchants for tolerance, equality and inclusion intact.