Canada's Trust Landscape

How would you describe the trust landscape in Canada right now?

Every fall, we survey people around the world to measure their trust in four institutions: government, business, NGOs and media. Last fall we found that Canadians were quite distrusting of all these institutions — and government was at the bottom of the list. At that time, only 50 per cent of respondents trusted government, 53 per cent trusted both business and media and 55 per cent trusted NGOs.

Fast forward a few months and we re-surveyed Canadians in the midst of the global pandemic, and found record highs in reported trust across all four institutions. This included a 20-point jump in trust in government, which actually moved from fourth position into first. This significant increase can be explained by the fact that the federal government built confidence by embracing partnership and collaboration. Where there were once tensions between political parties, we have seen a decline in hyper-partisan rhetoric, as leaders at all levels of government presented a consciously