The cost of living remained top of mind for many Canadians this year, even though inflation dropped in 2024 and the Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate several times.
That issue was considered the top domestic news story in Canada by 71 per cent of Canadians, according to new Ipsos polling conducted exclusively for Global News on what people considered the biggest stories of this year.
“The challenge of getting by financially from day-to-day is the fundamental preoccupation of Canadians,” Darrell Bricker, global CEO of Ipsos public affairs, told Global News. “It’s not surprising that it (cost of living) shows up as the number one domestic story.”
Next to cost of living, the homelessness crisis ranked second at 40 per cent and the Canada Post strike in third at 37 per cent.
The polling was conducted between Dec. 6 and 10, with 1,001 Canadians over the age of 18 interviewed online.
Political parties made cost of living a top priority during election campaigns in four provinces this year: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.
The federal government also looked at the cost of living, with the recent tax “holiday” that took effect earlier this month aimed at giving Canadians what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said would be a “real break” on various items they purchase — though specific federal relief measures like the cut itself were only seen by eight per cent as a top news story.
Sahir Khan, executive vice-president of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, told Global News last month when the “holiday” was announced that while inflation has eased, years of rising costs have compounded on Canadian families.
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Bricker suggested with the lower interest rate and dropping inflation, the “vibe” on the economy might be getting better, but it’s still a waiting game.
“I think it’s probably as much to do with people feeling like they’ve figured out a way to manage in these circumstances rather than things are actually getting better,” he said. “We’ll see how those things come together over time.”
According to Bricker, the cost of living was a “universal concern,” with Canadians naming it the top news story regardless of their age, income bracket, location, education level or gender.
Bricker added that a “big driver” of cost-of-living concerns is people’s ability to find “reasonable accommodation at a reasonable price,” which may be why homelessness ranked second among the top news stories.
Ipsos’s polling also found more than half pointed to the U.S. presidential election as the top global news story for Canadians.
A total of 56 per cent of Canadians named it as the top story, with the continued war in Ukraine coming in second at 42 per cent and the conflict in Gaza sitting at 35 per cent in third.
With the year coming to an end, Canadians were also asked how they felt about the upcoming year and a majority — 66 per cent — said they were optimistic 2025 would be better than 2024 for themselves, though just 51 per cent felt the same way for the country.
“It’s probably more hope than real serious belief that there’s going to be a better year coming,” Bricker said. “They do feel worse for the country than they do feel for themselves individually and I think that’s probably because they re
Cost of living, inflation and interest rates top list of Canadian priorities: Ipsos poll
ally are focused more on what’s going on in their individual lives and they see that they may be getting that somewhat more under control.”
And when it came to these personal feelings, 70 per cent of Canadians 18 to 34 were optimistic, compared with 69 per cent of those 35 to 54. Those 55 and older, however, had a slightly less positive outlook. with just 61 per cent feeling the same way.
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between Dec. 6 and Dec. 10, 2024, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
—with files from Global News’ Craig Lord
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
