What’s the hot topic in Canada right now? For the first time in more than a year, it’s not COVID. Pollster Angus Reid says the country’s attention seems to be pivoting to other issues. That, says Angus Reid, raises questions over the extent to which the ballot question in a possible 2021 election, will be Justin Trudeau’s pandemic management. Health Care is at the top of the agenda.

One-in-five Canadians say Indigenous issues are among their top three federal concerns.
That’s more than double the number who said so in March, or at any time over the past year and a half. It comes in the wake of the discovery in late May of the remains of 215 children buried on the grounds of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

The issue of housing affordability is similarly rising in priority – to 29 per cent – up seven points this quarter and 12 points compared to this time last year.
Canadians are significantly less likely to identify COVID-19 as a top issue in the country. Forty-five per cent did so in March, compared to 31 per cent who do now.

As for the leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finds his approval up four points over the last three months to 45 per cent, though the number of Canadians who strongly approve of him (8 per cent) is four times less than those who strongly disapprove (34 per cent). Conservative leader Erin O’Toole is viewed unfavourably by 56 per cent of Canadians, a decline of four more points from March. The NDP are preferred by 21 per cent of Canadians.

Canadians are largely against the idea of having an election before the fall.