The mood was bleak in 2023, but fret not - we’ve been here before

The following essay was published in The Globe and Mail on December 30, 2023.

Michael Adams is the founder and president of the Environics Institute for Survey Research. Andrew Parkin is the Institute’s executive director.

It was quite a year in Canada. Satisfaction with the federal government and the Prime Minister nosedived. The governing party was eclipsed in the polls by the Official Opposition. Public anxiety about the economy grew, and as it did, support for immigration weakened. Despite a global summit on the environment, the issue of climate change struggled to make it to the top of the political agenda. And lurking in the background were strains on national unity, as one key province took steps to advance its sovereignty in the face of perceived federal overreach.

The year we’re talking about, of course, is 1992. That year was characterized by escalating public unhappiness about the recession, the Constitution, and – for those focused on the Earth Summit in Rio – the environment. Dissatisfaction with Brian Mulroney’s government hit 82 per cent. An equal share of the public said they were worried about the country’s economic situation.

The point of this comparison is not to console the current Prime Minister with a reminder that he has predecessors who were less popular than he is today, but to offer broader reassurance that we can get through this. The public mood today is bleak, but it has been this bleak – and worse – before. Even if the governing Liberals may be in peril, the country itself is not.

Continue reading.