telling<\/a>\u00a0Canadians that we are stronger together and “we make our own weather”\u00a0is what people want to hear:\u00a0battle cries are needed in a war, after all.<\/p>\nBut all this bluster\u00a0is drowning out the real fears and worries of ordinary Canadians.<\/p>\n
The new poll by Leger is on the Canada-U.S. Trade War but interestingly it finds the top issue facing Canadians is “inflation and the rising cost of items” with 35 per cent of people being concerned. “Trump, tariffs and U.S. aggression” comes in second at 24 per cent. Health care and housing affordability round out the top four slots.<\/p>\n
The trade war is soaking up a lot of oxygen and attention, but even amidst this hullabaloo it is clear Canadians are still extremely focused on \u2014 and worried about \u2014 buying groceries and paying the rent.<\/p>\n
What the poll also reveals is that there is a generational divide\u00a0over the issues at play.<\/p>\n
Inflation is the primary concern\u00a0in the age categories of 18-34 and 35-54.\u00a0But for those over 55 it\u00a0is\u00a0Trump and his tariffs that\u00a0are\u00a0the main\u00a0issue.<\/p>\n
The younger age groups are also the ones who expect to\u00a0be hurt financially\u00a0from\u00a0the tariffs.\u00a0In the 18-34 group, almost three-quarters of people believe the tariffs will have\u00a0an impact on their finances.\u00a0That drops to 66 per cent of people aged 35-54\u00a0and to just over half of the 55 plus age group.<\/p>\n
The younger cohorts are also more\u00a0concerned about losing their jobs in the next 12 months\u00a0and more likely to believe Canada is currently in a recession.<\/p>\n
But across the board most people\u00a0are resigned to the fact that the new tariffs will affect consumer prices.\u00a0What is remarkable is that even though Canadians know they\u00a0face rising costs,\u00a0and that retaliatory tariffs\u00a0will increase the cost of living, three out of four people support them.<\/p>\n
Such an attitude is a testament to the fortitude of Canadians and\u00a0reflective of their resilience.<\/p>\n
Along with that grit\u00a0comes pride.\u00a0A total of\u00a083 per cent report they are proud to be Canadian\u00a0with a similar figure\u00a0found\u00a0right\u00a0across the country and\u00a0across all age groups falling only to 77 per cent in the 18-34 group.<\/p>\n
The mood is being driven by Trump and tariffs.<\/p>\n
In the last 2-3 months, 41 per cent of Canadians said they felt more pride in being Canadian\u00a0and three-quarters attributed their increase in pride to Trump’s statements.<\/p>\n
There is also anger\u00a0at our southern\u00a0neighbour\u00a0with 41 per cent\u00a0regarding\u00a0America as an enemy.\u00a0But, again, this view is being driven by older Canadians: just over half of those aged 55 or\u00a0over see\u00a0the U.S. as an enemy as opposed to 31 per cent of those aged 18-34.\u00a0Only 22 per cent regard America as an ally, the same number who\u00a0view it as a neutral country.<\/p>\n
Although this is an improvement.\u00a0At the end of March last year, shortly\u00a0after the U.S. president announced 25 per cent tariffs on a host of Canadian goods, America was seen as an enemy by 43 per cent of people.<\/p>\n
However, attitudes would change if Trump was no longer president. The new poll shows\u00a0that 64 per cent of people would change their opinion of the U.S. being an enemy if Trump\u00a0was\u00a0no\u00a0longer in the White House.<\/p>\n
All this anger and pride is to be expected when one feels betrayed. But Canadians aren’t all emotion, they have their practical side which demands answers and they knew where they want them to come from: parliament. More than half of Canadians \u2014 56 per cent \u2014 support recalling the House of Commons to address the tariff war.<\/p>\n
Carney has proved himself adept at\u00a0having his finger on the pulse of the nation, but if he\u00a0truly wants\u00a0to fulfill the wishes of\u00a0Canadians\u00a0he should recall parliament and tell the country\u00a0exactly what this trade\u00a0war is all about.<\/p>\n
And if he wants\u00a0to improve the mood of the\u00a0country,\u00a0he could tell Canadians how\u00a0he’s\u00a0going to make it a less expensive place\u00a0to live.<\/p>\n
National Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadians are bracing themselves for tough times ahead but can be grateful to Donald Trump for\u00a0at least\u00a0uniting them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[61727,61728,351,817,735,111,28,2878],"class_list":["post-197149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-18-34","tag-18-34-only-22-per-cent","tag-canadian","tag-canadians","tag-carney","tag-mark-carney","tag-trump","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}