Among current NDP voters, Lewis is well liked. In our latest polling, 65% of NDP voters have a positive impression of him and only 3% have a negative one. So this isn’t a story about the base rejecting him. There’s no obvious revolt here. No sign that NDP voters are looking at their new leader and having second thoughts.

But the NDP is sitting at 8% nationally. So being liked by NDP voters is necessary, but it’s not nearly enough.

The bigger number is this: only 34% of Canadians say they would consider voting NDP. Two-thirds say they would not. And that accessible voter pool hasn’t really grown since Lewis became leader at the end of March. It was 35% in early April. It is 34% now.

For context, when the NDP was competitive in 2015, 56% of Canadians said they would be open to voting for the party - more than any other party.

The leadership change has not yet expanded the party’s audience.

Lewis himself remains largely undefined. Nationally, 17% of Canadians have a positive impression of him, 27% have a negative one, 31% are neutral, and 25% say they don’t know enough about him to say. His positive and negative numbers have barely moved over the past three months.

A quarter of the country still doesn’t know enough about him. Another third is neutral. There’s still space to introduce himself and define what his leadership is about.

But the NDP’s problem is bigger than Avi Lewis.

The party is trying to rebuild while the Carney Liberals are holding a lot of the political ground the NDP would need to occupy. The Liberals are leading nationally. Carney’s approval is positive. And even on affordability and the economy, issues that should create openings for opposition parties, the Liberals remain competitive.

That makes the NDP’s task much harder.

Lewis may have stabilized the party. He may have reassured New Democrats. But 100 days in, he has not yet changed the shape of Canadian political opinion landscape.

For the NDP, the next step is not just getting people to know Avi Lewis better. It is giving people a reason to consider the NDP again.

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After everything that happened last year, that feels important.

Mark Carney became Prime Minister. The Liberals recovered. The Conservatives lost the huge lead they had been holding for months. The mood of the country improved. And Canadians seemed to rethink what kind of leadership they wanted in a more uncertain world.

But in this latest wave, the numbers are mostly steady.

The Liberals lead nationally by eight points, 44% to 36% over the Conservatives. The NDP is at 8%, the Bloc is at 7%, and the Greens and People’s Party are both at 2%. Compared with two weeks ago, the Liberals are down a point and the Conservatives are down a point. So, in practical terms, the race has not really moved.

The broader mood is also basically unchanged.

Today, 42% of Canadians think the country is headed in the right direction. Another 44% think it is on the wrong track. That is not exactly a wave of national optimism. But it is also not the deep pessimism we were seeing earlier this year.

And Canadians still see Canada much more positively than they see the rest of the world. Only 14% think the world is headed in the right direction. Only 13% think the United States is. So people are not looking around and saying everything is great here. They are saying Canada feels more stable and more functional than a lot of what they see elsewhere.

The issue agenda is still difficult for any government. Affordability dominates everything. Almost seven in ten Canadians put the rising cost of living among their top three issues. The economy, housing, healthcare, and Donald Trump and his administration come next.

Normally, those conditions should create a lot of room for the opposition. When people are worried about prices, jobs, housing, and the economy, governments usually feel it.

But that is not really happening right now.

Among Canadians who rank the cost of living as a top issue, the Liberals are slightly ahead of the Conservatives. Among those focused on the economy, the Liberals are also narrowly ahead. The government’s approval is still net positive among people who say affordability, housing, and the economy are among their top concerns.

I think that is the most interesting part of this poll.

Canadians are worried. They are not pretending the country is without problems. But many do not seem to be putting those problems squarely on the Carney government, at least not yet. They may be frustrated with the cost of living, but they are still giving the government and the Prime Minister some benefit of the doubt.

Carney’s personal numbers help explain why. Half of Canadians have a positive impression of him, compared with 31% who have a negative one. Pierre Poilievre’s numbers remain weaker nationally, with 38% positive and 43% negative.

That continues to be a problem for the Conservatives. Their supporters are motivated and Poilievre remains strong with them. But the party still has to grow beyond that base. At the moment, there is not much evidence in our data that this is happening.

For the Liberals, the coalition that delivered their victory last year is still mostly intact. They continue to lead among older Canadians and in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. Government approval remains positive. And Carney continues to be viewed more favourably than his main opponent.

Of course, things can change. This survey was completed before some of the latest developments around British Columbia, Alberta, pipelines, and CUSMA had fully entered the public conversation.

But as of now, Canadian politics looks steady.

You can read the full poll here.

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Some of those conversations happen through surveys. Many more happen in airports, coffee shops, after speeches, at client meetings, or around dinner tables with family and friends. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

People still have plenty to complain about. Housing is too expensive. Groceries cost too much. Young people wonder whether they’ll ever own a home. Trump aggrevates most.

But underneath all of that, I kept sensing something else.

A renewed appreciation for Canada.

Our latest Abacus Data survey suggests I wasn’t imagining it.

Today, 77% of Canadians say they are proud to be Canadian. That’s up from 68% a year ago and 65% two years ago.

Now, I don’t think this means Canadians suddenly believe everything is going well.

The rest of our polling tells us exactly the opposite.

Confidence remains fragile. Affordability dominates people’s worries. Younger Canadians remain far less optimistic than older generations about their future. Many think it’s becoming harder and not easier to build a good life here.

So why is pride increasing?

I’ve been wondering whether uncertainty itself has reminded Canadians what they value.

When the world feels less predictable, you pay more attention to what you already have.

When politics elsewhere becomes more polarized, more chaotic, and more performative, Canada’s quieter strengths become easier to appreciate.

When questions about sovereignty, trade, and our relationship with the United States dominate the news, being Canadian becomes something people think about more consciously.

That’s exactly what I think this survey seems to capture.

When we asked Canadians what makes them proud, the answers weren’t surprising: our natural beauty, our peaceful society, universal healthcare, and our reputation for tolerance and inclusion all ranked near the top. Increasingly, people also pointed to Canada’s ability to stand apart from the United States and defend its own interests.

What struck me most wasn’t the pride itself. It was who is feeling it.

The biggest increases came from younger and middle-aged Canadians.

These are the same Canadians who tell us they’re struggling the most with affordability and opportunity.

That tells me pride and optimism aren’t the same thing.

You can worry about the future while still loving your country.

You can believe Canada needs to do better because you believe it can.

As Canada Day approaches, I find that reassuring.

We’re often told we’re living through an age of cynicism. And there is certainly plenty of that around.

But maybe something quieter is happening too.

Maybe Canadians are rediscovering what binds us together.

Not because we think Canada is perfect. Not because we’ve solved our problems. But because we still believe this country is worth caring about, worth improving, worth arguing over.

That’s a pretty good place to start a Canada Day.

Happy Canada Day.

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I think the tell came a few weeks ago.

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That’s not because the Liberals are suddenly in trouble, I don’t think they.

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Beyond this one measure, the specific issue agenda still looks hard. Cost of living leads as the most cited national issue at 66%, followed by the economy, Donald Trump and his administration, health care, and housing. Many Canadians continue to feel they are falling behind. Most have what we called a precarity mindset.

But it’s this new found asymmetric optimism is fascinating to me. Canadians are more positive about Canada while remaining deeply negative about the world and the United States. They are anxious about external shocks, but more willing to see Canada as a place with some protection from those shocks. It’s like Canada has become like good shocks on a car - absorbing the bumps and potholes on the road people have little agency to control.

As I’ve watched this line on the chart below increase, I’ve been thinking about the impact of this optimism on politics, advocacy, and public affairs more generally.

A pessimistic electorate narrows minds. People look for relief. They punish governments. They discount big plans because big plans feel like risk.

In contrast, an optimistic electorate listens longer. People grant others more time. They accept trade-offs when the path feels credible. They become more open to ambition when ambition feels connected to security.

This does not mean Canadians are asking for disruption. The precarity mindset still matters. Our work from 2025 described the shift from scarcity, concern about access to essentials today, toward precarity, concern about whether core systems will hold over time. Global instability, economic volatility, and threats from the United States moved many Canadians from short-term squeeze toward longer-term insecurity.

I think political psychology helps explain this “split brain” phenomenon. Anxiety and optimism do not cancel each other out. They often coexist. Affective intelligence theory, developed by George Marcus, Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen, argues emotions help citizens decide when to rely on habit and when to pay attention. Anxiety increases attention. Enthusiasm strengthens attachment. Applied to Canada today, world anxiety keeps people alert. Domestic optimism strengthens attachment to the national project.

Behavioural economics adds a second layer. People assess gains and losses against a reference point. Prospect theory and related work on loss aversion show losses carry more weight than equivalent gains. The endowment effect and status quo bias point in the same direction. Once people see something as valuable and already theirs, they become reluctant to risk losing the value.

Canada, in this mood, becomes the reference point.

Think about it this way: A country with working institutions, relative stability, and a governing style many perceive as serious becomes more valuable when alternatives look volatile. This does not make voters complacent but I do think it makes them protective. The outside world raises the perceived value of the domestic status quo.

This is where Mark Carney matters.

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That gap between stated position and political behaviour is the key to understanding her choices.

Instead of asking whether Smith supports independence, I think it makes more sense to understand the guardrails constraining her choices.

Abacus Data polling helps answer that question.

The independence movement in Alberta remains a minority project. In our polling, about one in four Albertans say they support independence, while a clear majority oppose it. Strong support is smaller still. Most Albertans are not asking for a referendum as their top priority. They are more focused on affordability, health care, the economy, and the basic performance of government.

But that does not mean the independence issue is politically marginal.

An issue can lack majority support and still exert real influence if it is attached to identity, grievance, and a highly motivated faction inside a governing party’s coalition. That’s the political environment Smith is navigating.

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Her choices make more sense when viewed through that lens.

Smith is not acting like a premier trying to persuade the median Albertan to support independence. The data would not justify that strategy. Instead, she appears to be managing a smaller but more intense group of voters who have come to the conclusion that the federation won’t ever work in Alberta’s best interests. And this intense, smaller group of people are almost entirely within her party’s voter coalition

Close to half of those who support the UCP support independence.

I think this is why her language has been so carefully balanced. She says she supports a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. She says she does not want Alberta to separate. But she also validates the frustration that gives the separatist movement energy. She does not describe separatists as outside the bounds of respectable Alberta politics. She treats them as frustrated Albertans whose concerns deserve a process.

I think this is central to her strategy as opposed to a minor rhetorical choice.

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At some point over the past year, the central question in Canadian politics changed.

It was no longer simply, “Are you better off?” or “Is it time for change?” But another question has moved closer to the centre of the political conversation: who do you trust to manage risk?

That is the question Mark Carney is winning right now.

Our latest poll finds the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 10 points and the federal government’s approval rating at a new high. On its own, that is remarkable. A Liberal government, after a decade of Liberal government, should not easily find itself with that kind of advantage in a country still frustrated by affordability, housing, and economic insecurity. 55% of Canadians think the Carney government represents a clear break from the Trudeau government. That perceptions is a major factor in why those other numbers are so high.

But the affinity we see for Prime Minister Carney and his government is not blind confidence. But I don’t think it’s because everyone really understands the specifics of what the government’s plan is.

I think it’s something different. It is a trust premium.

A large enough share of Canadians have decided, at least for now, that Carney probably (key word) knows what he is doing on the economy, deficits, debt, trade, and the broader question of Canada’s place in a much more dangerous world. They are giving him room to act, and they are reserving the right to judge him on what happens next.

That is the story in some new polling I just completed last week.

The numbers behind the premium

Asked how much confidence they have that the Carney government is making the tough choices needed to get Canada’s deficit and debt under control, 58% of Canadians express confidence. Thirty-eight percent are on the other side: 16% say they do not have much confidence and 22% say they have no confidence at all. Five percent are not sure.

This represents a meaningful margin on exactly the kind of issue that has historically been more comfortable terrain for Conservatives than Liberals.

The broader economic question tells the same story. Asked whether Canada’s economic situation under the Carney government, things like business investment, job creation, and long-term growth prospects, is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction, 55% say right direction.

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The headline finding is straightforward: government approval has reached a new high. Today, 57% of Canadians approve of the job the federal government led by Carney is doing, while 28% disap…

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There’s a line buried in the Spring Economic Update 2026 tabled by the Finance Minister yesterday that I keep coming back to.

“Building Canada Strong includes a strong sporting system.”

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