A new global poll says Canadians’ confidence in the economy turned sharply negative over the summer during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Sixty-one per cent (61%) of Canadians taking part in a Pew Research Center survey said the current economic situation is bad, more than twice the 27% who said the same in 2019.
In all, 12 of 14 countries surveyed as part of the global poll were asked the same question last year, and all of them reported similar double-digit reversals, with Canada's 34 percentage point change the biggest swing in sentiment.
Only in Europe did a majority of respondents say their domestic economies were faring well, with Denmark and Sweden leading the way at 74% and 68% respectively. The two Scandanavian nations adopted different pandemic strategies: Sweden initially adopted a libertarian, herd-immunity approach, while Denmark was the second country in Europe to impose a nationwide lockdown that got the virus under control quickly.
The Canadian segment of the survey was conducted by phone with 1,037 adult respondents between June 15 and July 27 and carries a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
