Eighty per cent of respondents to The Logic’s latest subscriber survey are satisfied with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s handling of U.S. tariffs and trade relations, but they are less enthusiastic about progress on the home front.
The survey, which was conducted prior to the prime minister’s announcement of a sovereign wealth fund and the release of the spring economic statement this week, indicates that three-quarters of subscribers are satisfied with Carney’s performance overall in the year since he took office—a time period that has included everything from Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs to the beginning of the Iran war. Domestically, the Liberals have announced major initiatives for homebuilding and AI in the past year, and recently secured a majority in the House of Commons after several byelection wins and floor crossings.
Related Articles
Dealing with Trump was the backbone of Carney’s winning campaign last spring, and 59 per cent of respondents have been “very satisfied” with the prime minister’s handling of the U.S. president and tariffs so far. The topic was by far the strongest showing for Carney among the five subjects respondents addressed in the survey, and the only one where the “very satisfied” cohort outnumbered their “somewhat satisfied” counterparts.
“He has consistently avoided being baited into unproductive conversations and is standing firm for Canadian values,” one reader said.
Several readers praised Carney’s “balance” in negotiations with a difficult “dance partner,” but some took issue with the concessions made, including “trading away [Canada’s] digital sovereignty.” As part of negotiations, the federal government rescinded the digital services tax, which required large businesses—including in the U.S.—to pay three per cent tax on certain online revenues made by monetizing data from Canadian users.
Other subscribers lauded the prime minister’s trade diversification efforts as “playing the long game,” and expressed approval for his “hedging against the U.S.” by strengthening ties with countries in Asia and Europe.
“The Americans will hopefully come to their senses at some point; if not, we need to build resilience and shift elsewhere,” one respondent said.
“I think he has done a decent job diversifying trade and not letting Canada spiral like the U.S.,” another reader said, “but I would like to see him make a bigger emphasis on tackling affordability at home.”
Respondents were split about Carney’s progress on the cost of living in Canada, with 41 per cent satisfied, 40 per cent neutral and 18 per cent dissatisfied. Several respondents praised the repeal of the consumer carbon tax, but seemed more divided on the effectiveness of the recent suspension of the fuel excise tax amid rising oil prices due to the Iran war. Many respondents, however, said external factors are largely at play, and that “much is beyond the government’s control.”
“While there is a lot of noise around cost of living, and real evidence of problems (e.g. higher food bank usage), it isn’t clear to me what the biggest contributors are to that challenge,” one respondent wrote.
Readers were similarly lukewarm on the Carney government’s progress on housing affordability, with 35 per cent of respondents “neutral,” 40 per cent satisfied and 21 per cent dissatisfied. Last year, Carney announced an agency to double the rate of homebuilding by 2035, but many respondents said they weren’t holding their breath. “It takes time to build the underlying infrastructure for an educated way forward,” one person said. “A majority now will help with that, too.”
Some readers were less patient with Ottawa’s promises around a national strategy meant to outline the federal government’s goals for artificial intelligence, with 26 per cent of respondents dissatisfied with progress on the issue.
“They promised a strategy in 2025. It’s Q2 [of] 2026 and nothing.”
“We’re still waiting for the strategy… and others are moving faster. Set some guardrails, acknowledge it will be a moving target and be a first buyer of Canadian tech,” one reader said, while another added that Ottawa “needs to be careful that they aren’t just putting a new coat of paint on the issue—we need sovereign AI and that includes keeping the data and the brains within Canada.”
Overall, though, 75 per cent of respondents gave Carney’s performance in “a tumultuous year” their stamp of approval, despite some “rookie” mistakes.
“I think that we are lucky to have a grown-up in power, even if I don’t agree with all of his positions,” said one reader.
“We should have diversified our markets long ago,” another subscriber said. “Now we are forced to do it and we could not have a better person at the helm to make the change that we need now.”