Canada election comes as economic satisfaction is at record lows: polling

Tuesday's Gallup report showing years of declining attitudes toward the economy, housing and other issues is presented as a series of 'tests' for Canada's next prime minister.

Canadians are feeling record low levels of economic optimism and satisfaction in public services like housing and health care, a new analysis of Gallup polling suggests, presenting major challenges for whichever party forms government after the federal election.

Tuesday’s report, presented as a series of “tests” for Canada’s next prime minister, compiled nearly two decades of data collected annually from the pollster’s surveys of long-term issues in over 100 countries.

While the most recent polling was conducted months before U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies caused further economic uncertainty, the report suggests declines in Canadian attitudes toward the economy and U.S. leadership have been persistent for years.

It also suggests the economic concerns highlighted in more recent Ipsos polling done exclusively for Global News, which shows cost of living is a top federal election issue, are rooted in more longstanding worries among Canadians.

“The cost of living and the housing crisis are widespread issues across many rich countries,” Benedict Vigers, who authored the report for Gallup, told Global News.

“But Canada is certainly up there amongst the declines, looking back over the last two decades of our trends.”

Vigers analyzed data from Gallup’s World Poll, which has surveyed 1,000 Canadian adults every summer since 2005, with similarly-sized polls conducted in more than 160 other countries. The results in Canada carry a 3.5 per cent margin of error.

The analysis found Canadians’ optimism about their economic condition — which for nearly two decades has been above the median of other advanced economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — has plummeted since 2022.