Canadian pride in country plummets in last 30 years, according to poll

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New data from the Angus Reid Institute is reflecting lingering frustration among Canadians with our seeming inability to find consensus. This disaffection is slowly unhooking our attachment to each other and the country, according to the pollster’s survey released on Friday.

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“There are lots of threads pulling on the fabric of Canadian society or what we once thought defined Canada,” Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute told the National Post.

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Back in 2016, Kurl explains, the portrait of Canada that came out of the ARI’s research “was not about hockey, or Tim Hortons or even health care. It was about a shared faith that you could have the opportunity, the economic ability, to have a good life.”

That shared faith is certainly in decline, based on the ARI’s cumulative data for more than 30 years.

In 1991, 65 per cent of Canadians reported a “deep emotional attachment” to Canada, according to ARI. That number dropped to 62 per cent by 2015. By 2024, it plummeted to 49 per cent.

Concurrently, the pride Canadians have in their country has fallen sharply. Seventy-eight per cent of respondents in 1985 said they were “very proud” to be Canadian. That number dropped to 52 per cent by 2016. And this year there was another drop — to 34 per cent.

In short, the proportion of survey respondents who said they are “proud” or “very proud” to be Canadian has dropped significantly in the last eight years — from 79 per cent to 58 per cent.

Declines in “deep attachment” to Canada are consistent across regional lines, says Kurl. The survey data indicates Quebecers are least likely to slide in their attachment, but that’s because the starting point in that province is already the lowest in the country (37 per cent).

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Meanwhile, the number of Albertans who profess deep emotional attachment to Canada has dropped 20 points since 2016 — from 67 to 47 per cent.

Older Canadians — women and men over age 54 — are most likely to be proud to be Canadian (71 per cent and 68 per cent respectively).

Among Canadians under 35, fewer than half of men (48 per cent) and women (41 per cent) carry that pride.

Kurl points to gnawing economic worry, particularly the impact of inflation this overall decline in national pride. The affordability crisis and how Canadians frame the issue is intricately connected to the issue, she adds.

For example, she points out that older Canadians can remember much higher interest rates, while younger Canadians have grown used to easy money — buying and borrowing online without the kind of second thought they’ve had to engage in recently.

The ARI data shows the level of a respondent’s income correlates closely with their degree of pride. Those least likely to be proud of Canada were lower on the economic scale – 48 per cent of people earning less than $25,000. Wealthier Canadians – folks with a household income of more than $200,000 — were more prideful about the country.

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The ARI investigated potential sources of the cultural tension. The pollster asserts “the ripple effects” of the COVID pandemic “are still being felt.” Two years after the first lockdowns, Kurl notes, 82 per cent of Canadians told the ARI that the pandemic had ‘pulled people further apart’, while 61 per cent said compassion for each another had grown weaker.

Political loyalty is part of this mix. Conservative party supporters are most likely to take radical positions when it comes to our confederation. Eight per cent said they would rather Canada break into smaller countries, while 11 per cent said they would like Canada to take up Donald Trump’s offer to become the 51st American state. On the other side of the aisle, support for those options among Liberal and NDP voters adds up to six percentage points combined.

Kurl says our pervasive disparity reflects polarized messaging that Canadians are getting from federal politicians.

“Some say Canada is broken, while others say there is nothing wrong with the country.” While neither of those views are strictly accurate, they result in pushing pragmatic problem-solving to the edges, Kurl asserts.

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And government isn’t the only fracturing institution that is slipping in its ability to “ensure we have good lives.” A prime example, Kurl says, is the ongoing challenges within the public health-care system, which has been struggling with staffing shortages, long wait-times for surgeries, emergency room closures, and a nationwide deficit of family doctors.

She also considers splintered media a factor that feeds the drop in national pride. “Back in 1991, Canadians read one of 15 newspapers available across the country and one of three to five television news networks.” Now, younger Canadians are looking to “news influencers,” she says. That term, itself, doesn’t hold meaning for older Canadians, she points out.

All these factors add up to Canadians becoming less attached to the country than they were 30 years ago, according to the recent poll. In 1991, 65 per cent of respondents said they had “a deep emotional attachment” to Canada, a time when just one-in-five (19 per cent) said they were attached to Canada “as long as it provides a good standard of living.”

The latter figure has almost doubled to 37 per cent, while the former has dropped 16 points.

Resolving the current state of the country involves taking “a longer view,” says Kurl, with Canadians finding a way to shift from conflict to “decorum.”

The Angus Reid Institute conducted this online survey from Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, 2024, among a representative randomized sample of 4,004 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum.

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