The Current - How are you feeling about the economy and politics?

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Shachi Kurl, the President of the Angus Reid Institute, a polling firm, join us to give us an insight into how Canadians are feeling about the economy and politics after a turbulent year for the country.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Well, there's no question. 2025 has been a turbulent year. It started with annexation threats from the United States, a snap election with a surprising outcome here at home, a rocky economy, rising inflation,

and growing anxiety in sectors hard hit by Donald Trump's tariffs. So how are Canadians feeling about all this and how might that shape politics in 2020? Shotsie Curl has been taking the temperature. She is president of the Angus Reed Institute, a polling firm, of course, and she's in our Vancouver studio, Shotchy. Good morning. Good morning. It's incredible, actually, when you think about it now and you look back on 2025.

It starts with Trump taking office, Trudeau stepping down, Carney stepping in, a snap election, didn't see the outcome that we eventually had. You know, you go on and on, and that was just in the first few months of the year. How would you sum up how this has left Canadians feeling about their country right now? I mean, I think, Mark, the best way to put it is that emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and politically, it was a sharp, shocking plunge into a wintry, icy Canadian lake. It was such a shock to the system. Not since a post-1867 concept of Canada have our borders been figuratively or literally threatened. I mean, it was just so much for Canadians to process.

And I don't know about you, but just listening to that summary as you came into that, like, I'm like, aren't you tired? I'm very tired. Canadians are tired. Yeah, I think if I was to choose the mood, the word. for the mood would be exhausted. But where have you seen the biggest shifts? I mean, what sort of have been the consequences on how Canadians are seeing the future right now? In many ways, it's really been a reprioritizing of the lens through which people are looking at key issues.

And it's not so much that key issues have had a wholesale change. When you look at what people are telling me about in terms of what's preoccupying them, what's on their minds, It's still housing affordability, cost of living, the general economy overall, jobs and unemployment, access to primary health care. These continue to be the big issues, but it's the way that the threats and the uncertainty that we're living in as a country at this moment has changed the lens on a lot of ancillary issues. So I'll give you a couple of examples of that. We have seen a near doubling in the number of Canadians who now say we should increase defense spending far and over what NATO would be asking for. Four or five years ago, I would not, that is a number.

It's now at almost one in five Canadians. That's just something we wouldn't have seen. And what do you attribute that to? I mean, again, all of that is around. And I have a few more examples like this. It's just like it's all about where does Canada. sit in the world now that our best friend or our former best friend very much former in the mindset of Canadians. And that may change again in time. Our, you know, most reliable trading

partner, most economically important trading partner has now sort of said, sorry, we don't think you rate anymore. And it has caused a real reassessment of who are we in the world? Who do we do business with? Who do we make friends with? Who do we create strategic partnerships and alliances with? And we're starting to see the impacts and the effects of that. Okay. You said you had a few more examples. Well, for example, think about where we were as a nation a year ago, two years ago, vis-a-vis our diplomatic relationship with India. Now you've got more than half the country who say that restoring diplomatic ties with New Delhi is the right thing to do. Look at where we are on issues such as the environment and climate change. You know, climate hasn't stopped

changing, but what has changed significantly, particularly over the last six years, are the number of Canadians who say that it is their most important voting issue. That number used to be as high as 42%. It used to be the number one voting issue in the country back in 2019. Today, that number is almost dented about 15, 16, 17, 18 percent, way lower. And then just to come back to trade for a second. I'm wandering a bit. But when we look at who we should be focusing on in terms of building broader and deeper trade partnerships, it used to be just a year ago, Mark, one year ago that people were still most inclined to say, look, let's focus on the United States. Today, just half that same number are saying the same thing. And the U.S. is way down the list

of places in the world that Canadians think that we should be trying to. to broaden trade ties with. There's one other issue I wanted to ask you about, and that's immigration, too. And I'm feeling a shift just as a journalist, but you as a pollster. How are you seeing Canadians' attitude shifting on the issue of immigration? Absolutely souring on immigration, which for me, as a daughter of immigrants, who came of age at a time when Canada was really lauded for having gotten the immigration experience right. It's been quite a thing to watch the extent to which people have been like, no, let's shut the door.

Let's really shut this down. But I would also say that, you know, when you probe people in this country around their perceptions of immigration, they don't often see a difference between people who are coming work ready with education versus temporary foreign workers. And so it's a very complex issue at this moment being boiled down to it's too much, it's too many, cool it off. But we're already starting to see some of the effects of that, right? There's been depopulation numbers coming out of Statistics Canada talking about BC's population dropping. I'm talking to you from Vancouver and other places. And employers now starting to say, oh, we're having labor shortages. So I don't think we've necessarily heard the end of this file.

that's where we are today. As you mentioned at the outset here, I mean, everything has been turned upside down. It's like the snow globe effect in this country right now because of Donald Trump's presidency. And that led, of course, to Mark Carney. He steps in. He gets elected to the surprise of many people, especially Pierre Paulyev. But he was elected arguably on the promise that he was best place to deal with Trump. There's still no deal.

And last week, the prime minister said there wouldn't likely be any relief for steel, aluminum or software before the Canada, United States, Mexico agreement, or Kuzma negotiations. Have a listen. My judgment is that that is now going to roll into the broader Kizma negotiations. So we're less likely, we're unlikely given the time horizons coming together to have a sectoral agreement, although if the United States wants to come back on that in those areas, we're always ready there. We're very ready. Chachie, how much does this inability to get a deal with the U.S. hurt Mark Carney politically? It doesn't help him, but if I look at his approval numbers up until December of this year,

they're still above 50%. He started the year at 46% approval when a lot of people didn't know who he was or what he stood for. And as long as Donald Trump is the boogeyman in this conversation, Mark Carney continues to be given a level of grace that I might not have predicted at the beginning of the year, or certainly not in June, when the prime minister was talking about we're going to have a deal done by July 1, by July 21. And I think initially it was, well, at what point does the mood turn on the prime minister? But the mood is so, so angry at and sour with the U.S. president that we're not necessarily starting to see. a lack of patience. I think people are like, well, to an extent, it wouldn't matter who was in the PMO at the moment. It's really, I think Canadians are under no illusion that the lack of consistency, the volatility is more about Washington than it is about Ottawa. But you have

recent polling that shows a 15% drop for the Liberals in the Metro Vancouver area. So what do you read into that? That's all about pipeline politics, which is a really complex thing. We can get into that. You know, two things can be true at the same time. It's something I say a lot and it's something that we're seeing now with pipelines. On one hand, you're seeing really a sea change both nationally and in British Columbia around tolerance for or notional support for the idea. It's just an idea at this stage. There's no proponent of a northern pipeline between northern Alberta and northern B.C. You've got 60% of Canadians nationally saying, yeah, we would support this idea.

53% in B.C., which is, again, something that I have not seen in a decade of measuring public opinion in British Columbia on a northern pipeline agreement. So that is pretty significant. But at the same time, those pockets of resistance, the strongest, the strongest, opposition is always going to be found in Metro Vancouver. And we saw in April in that federal election a real coming together of a coalition of not conservative, not, never polyev voters. So people who might have otherwise voted green, people who would have otherwise voted NDP, but were not particularly enamored of former leader Jagmeet Singh's efforts, who coalesced behind Mark Carney and the liberals. And for many of those people, I mentioned earlier, climate changes

is a lesser important issue to many Canadians, but it's still important to those people who care about it. And a lot of those voters are climate voters saying, I'm sorry, what? This is not what I voted for. We mentioned Pierre Paulier before. He's had a tough year. He lost his own seat in the election. He had to run in a by-election. He's lost two MPs to the liberals. He's got a leadership review coming up next month. And even if he does well in the leadership review, If he wants to win the next election, he probably needs to find about a million more votes. And that's something he was joking about at the Ottawa Press Gallery dinner last month. Let's listen.

I've been told since the election that I need to gain those extra few percentage points by being more lovable and human. So naturally, I've commissioned a poll on how to do that. And the preliminary results are in. Option A, I can get a dog. Or option B, and I'm quoting the pollster here. here, I can find more meaningful ways to connect with people on a personal level and make emotional connections with Canadians. So I immediately called the pollster and said, what kind of dog?

Shut you, what you think? I was not that pollster. Okay, but would a dog help? I think what would have helped, Mr. Poliev, during the campaign, was an ability to stick to a message that wasn't backward looking about Mr. Trudeau and axing carbon taxes and bringing it home and sort of the slogan area. And I was at the press gallery dinner. He spoke to that too, that he needed to find new slogans. It was about in a moment of national pride, of shock, of, you know, small pea panic among Canadian voters, really needing to hear from Mr. Poliev in that moment that he was as much elbows up, team Canada, as the next potential prime ministerial candidate. And we would see it on the campaign trail for a day or two, and then he would pivot back to what he was comfortable

talking about. And it just wasn't, it was not an example of the man meeting the moment in the moment that he needed to meet. The latest polls have shown the liberals and the conservatives pretty much neck and neck, but Carney way ahead of Poliev when it comes to personal popularity. Do you think in 2026, Carney will take advantage of that and call a snap election? Oh, gosh. I mean, the beleaguered pollster who really started her year this time a year ago with that last poll for Mr. Tudeau showing his approval at an all-time low, showing liberal voted.

intent at a historic, like possible all-time low, would really like to not see another election. But I think that, you know, there's always the potential for political actors to try and take advantage of a moment. But I think the broader question is, do Canadians want stability and seriousness in this moment? And I think that they've indicated that that is what they want. It's why they chose Mark Carney. And so I think that, you know, the issues surrounding Kuzma and trilateral trade and what is all of that going to mean takes precedence over the potential for political gain as a result of a snap election. Chachi, happy New Year and thanks so much for coming in to speak with us. It's always a pleasure.

Happy New Year to you, Mark. Chachy Curl is president of the Angus Reed Institute. we reached her in Vancouver. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.