‘Rage' survey shows the politician Canadians are most angry about
Justin Trudeau leaving the stage has eased the rage.
And credit Donald Trump with giving Canadian politicians a bump.
That's the suggestion from
Pollara Strategic Insights' latest 'Rage Index' poll
.
Since the firm's last such survey in
November
, Canadians' anger toward the federal government has plunged 18 percentage points and there was a 10 percentage point drop in frustration with various provincial governments.
'One of the main theories on this is Trudeau himself was obviously a focal point of a lot of anger in Canada. We haven't done the poll since he left as prime minister,' said Dan Arnold, Pollara's chief strategy officer.
Trudeau governed from 2015 until being succeeded in March by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who then kept the Liberals in power by securing a minority government in the April federal election.
'You don't see as many 'F—- Carney' flags as you did 'F—- Trudeau' flags,' said Arnold, referring to the profane banners that became commonplace around the time of the so-called '
Freedom Convoy
' protest in Ottawa three years ago.
Overall, 37 per cent were angry with the federal government — down from 55 per cent in November — while 28 per cent were happy and 35 per cent were neutral.
Similarly, 42 per cent were angry with their provincial government — compared with 52 per cent in the last poll — with 27 per cent happy and 31 per cent neutral.
But 78 per cent of respondents were angry with the new U.S. president, who has launched a trade war against Canada, while eight per cent were happy and 14 per cent had no opinion.
'The other thing that's going on is that Donald Trump is a big source of anger. Trump has become a bit of a lightning rod of anger,' said Arnold.
'A lot of the frustrations that people would normally put on their Canadian political leaders have been redirected toward Trump,' he said.
Using online panels, Pollara surveyed 3,400 people across the country May 16-20. While opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The firm found 49 per cent were unhappy with 'the types of changes happening in Canada,' an improvement on the 59 per cent finding last fall. Only 16 per cent were happy on that metric with 35 per cent neutral.
But 40 per cent of respondents were happy with the results of the April 28 election while 34 per cent were unhappy and 26 per cent were neutral.
About one-third — 32 per cent — were happy with Carney's new cabinet sworn in last month while 26 per cent were unhappy and 42 per cent had no opinion.
However, 56 per cent are angry about the Canadian economy, a one percentage point uptick from November's poll, with only 14 per cent happy and 30 per cent were neutral.
In that same vein, 38 per cent were unhappy with their own personal financial situation, up from 36 per cent in the last survey while 32 per cent were happy and 30 per cent were neutral.
'That's the one area where we don't see people feeling better,' noted Arnold.
'Actually, the anger level has gone up a little bit on things like the Canadian economy and personal finances — and that is absolutely because of the uncertainty that's going on right now,' the pollster said.
'We've seen unemployment figures starting to tick up and there's ... a lot of angst out there about what tariffs are going to mean and what this is going to have as an impact on Canada,' he said.
'So that is where we do see anger increasing. Trump himself is obviously catching a lot of the negative sentiment that otherwise would be going towards Canadian leaders. People are upset with the economy, but they're blaming it on Trump, instead of blaming it on Mark Carney or the provincial premiers right now.'
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