Picture taken on a recent trip back to Alberta – The beautiful Waterton Park
As 2025 was winding down, we assessed Canadian views on some big-picture issues including the state of the world, the national economy and personal finances. The fourth quarter of last year found Canadians worried about the economy – but paradoxically optimistic about the direction of the country.
First, let’s look at Canadians’ concerns:
Despite this slate of concerns, when asked “In the most general terms, do you feel that Canada as a whole is heading in the right direction or in the wrong direction?”, 51% chose “right direction”, while 38% said wrong direction. (11% were unsure.)1
For context, when we asked that same question in 2023 and 2024, the proportion saying the country was headed in the right direction was notably lower. In both those years, six in ten felt the country was moving in the wrong direction.
Is Canada heading in the right direction?
In other words, while some commentators believe that Canadians’ worries on specific topics (especially the economy) are creating a general sense of doom and gloom, these data don’t support that conclusion – the public mood is cautiously hopeful for now.
What’s creating this sense of guarded optimism? Perhaps it’s new leadership with a strong focus on investment and growth. Canadians are in a mood for economic renewal, even if that means trading off some of the environmental protections many have generally preferred.
What is the evidence to support this theory of the public mood? First, the economy and related topics were the most frequent responses to a question about the most important issues driving vote choice in the 2025 election. Leadership-related answers came second.2
Second, publicly available polling on approval of the Prime Minister and/or the federal government shows notable increases over the course of 2025. The new Liberal leader and PM was viewed much more favorably at the end of 2025 than his predecessor was earlier in the year.
Third, Canadians appear supportive of the new PM’s energy superpower agenda, whether that means building conventional energy infrastructure, clean energy projects, or both.3 Canadians appear hungry for jobs and growth and are currently on board with using all the country’s resources to break the log jam and generate economic activity.
At least for the moment, many Canadians are giving the PM and his agenda the benefit of the doubt, despite – or maybe because of – how bad they are feeling about the state of the world and the economy.
1 These are the Canadian results from the 2025 IRIS Global Confidence Survey. The survey was conducted online between October 10 and November 4, 2025, with a sample of 1,026 Canadian adults. Standard weighting for age, gender and region was applied. Multi-country reports will be published by the IRIS Network in the first quarter of 2026.
2 For more on this, see the Environics Institute report Ballot Questions: https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ballot-questions.pdf?sfvrsn=3dac3f76_1 https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ballot-questions.pdf?sfvrsn=3dac3f76_1
3 See: Globe & Mail: Majority of Canadians support building new oil infrastructure, poll shows (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadians-support-building-new-oil-pipeline-poll/) and/or Environics Research: Canada 2025: The Next Energy Superpower? (https://environics.ca/insights/reports/canada-2025-the-next-energy-superpower/)
