Most Canadians Say the Economy Is on the Wrong Track as Cost Pressures Keep Mounting

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A sour national mood rarely forms around a single number. It builds slowly through grocery bills, rent cheques, mortgage renewals, job worries, and the sense that even “better” headlines are not changing daily life fast enough. In Canada, that is increasingly the story. Recent polling shows a clear majority believes the national economy is on the wrong track, and that view is being reinforced by a stubborn affordability squeeze, a shakier labour backdrop for younger workers, and a housing market that feels softer without feeling truly affordable. At the same time, the data is not entirely bleak, which is what makes the moment so politically and emotionally complicated. These 10 themes explain why confidence remains fragile, why the public mood is darker than some official forecasts suggest, and what could eventually change it.

The Poll Result Is Too Big to Ignore

The headline number is blunt. A Canada Pulse Insights poll conducted for CityNews found that two-thirds of Canadians believe the national economy is on the wrong track, while just one-third said it is heading in the right direction. Only about three in ten expected either the national or local economy to improve over the next 60 days. That matters because short-term expectations often shape how households spend, save, borrow, and vote. When people stop believing improvement is close, pessimism becomes self-reinforcing.

What makes the finding more important is that it does not stand alone. Other recent national polling has also shown sentiment leaning negative or, at best, divided. Angus Reid found more Canadians saying the country is on the wrong track than the right one, while Abacus Data measured a similar near-even but still negative balance. In other words, even when the size of the pessimistic majority changes by pollster, the broader pattern is consistent: public confidence is not where governments usually want it to be.

Affordability Is Still the Lens Canadians Use

For many households, the economy is not judged by GDP tables or deficit updates. It is judged at the kitchen table. Angus Reid’s latest research showed that reducing the cost of living is the top challenge Canadians want addressed over the next year, well ahead of most other issues. That helps explain why official messaging about resilience often lands weakly. People are measuring the economy through what it costs to commute, feed a family, and keep up with bills, not through whether recession was avoided.

That framing is powerful because affordability pressures are sticky. Even when inflation cools from crisis peaks, prices do not rewind to older levels. A loaf of bread, a restaurant meal, or a monthly hydro bill can still feel expensive even if the annual rate of increase slows. The result is a disconnect between macroeconomic progress and personal experience. Governments can point to moderation; households still feel the accumulated damage. That gap between improving indicators and lived reality is one of the clearest reasons the public mood remains so sour.

Gas And Grocery Prices Stay Highly Visible

Not all inflation feels equal. Some price changes are more emotionally potent because they are encountered constantly and remembered easily. Gasoline is one of them. Statistics Canada reported that in March 2026, Canadians paid 5.9% more for gasoline than a year earlier, while prices surged 21.2% on a monthly basis, the largest monthly increase for gasoline on record. Grocery aisles told a similar story, with food purchased from stores up 4.4% year over year. Those are the kinds of increases that people notice immediately.

The visibility of those categories matters as much as the numbers themselves. A household may not track bond yields or export volumes, but it absolutely notices when filling the tank suddenly costs far more or when produce prices jump. Statistics Canada also noted a 7.8% annual rise in fresh vegetable prices in March, a sharp move tied partly to tighter supply conditions. That helps explain why public concern can intensify even when headline inflation still looks relatively contained. The categories people touch most often are the ones shaping the national mood.

The Labour Market Feels More Fragile Than The Headline Suggests

At first glance, Canada’s labour market does not look like it is in crisis. Statistics Canada said employment was little changed in March and the unemployment rate held at 6.7%. But the headline is only part of the picture. Employment had already fallen by a cumulative 109,000 over January and February, and the employment rate remained close to recent lows. That creates a sense of drift rather than collapse: not a dramatic breakdown, but not a reassuring expansion either.

The concern becomes sharper when younger Canadians are isolated. The youth unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 stood at 13.8% in March, more than double the national rate. Angus Reid highlighted that one-in-five Canadians fall into a “high financial pressure” category defined by job insecurity and pessimism about the future. That combination is important. When a labour market feels hardest to enter for younger workers and increasingly uncertain for those already in it, economic pessimism spreads beyond the unemployed. It reaches parents, households, and communities that start doubting the strength of the recovery itself.

Housing Is Softer, But Not Truly Affordable

One of the strangest features of Canada’s economy right now is that housing can be weaker and still feel punishing. CREA reported that the national average home price in March 2026 was $673,084, while the national benchmark price was down 4.7% from a year earlier. On paper, that sounds like relief. In practice, many buyers still see a market that remains too expensive relative to incomes, especially once mortgage carrying costs are included.

RBC’s affordability data helps explain why public frustration has not faded. Its national aggregate affordability measure improved to 52.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, but that still means ownership costs absorbed more than half of a typical household’s income. In Toronto, RBC said the share was 62.9%; in Vancouver, 88.2%. Those are not numbers that generate optimism. They generate hesitation. So even when prices cool and affordability “improves,” many Canadians still experience housing as exclusion, delay, or financial overextension, which keeps the wider economic mood under heavy strain.

Debt Turns Pressure Into Something More Personal

High prices are stressful on their own, but debt makes them heavier. Statistics Canada reported that household credit market debt rose to 177.2% of disposable income in the fourth quarter of 2025. Put simply, households owed about $1.77 for every dollar of disposable income. Even with some easing in debt-service pressure from earlier rate cuts, that is still an enormous load to carry into a period of modest growth and renewed energy-price volatility.

Insolvency data shows how that strain can spill into more serious financial trouble. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy said total insolvencies in February 2026 were 11.9% higher than a year earlier, with consumer insolvencies up 12.9% year over year for the month. Consumer filings accounted for 96.8% of all insolvency filings. That does not mean most households are in imminent danger, but it does mean a visible slice of the country is running out of room. Once people start hearing more often about proposals, bankruptcies, and debt stress, pessimism becomes social, not just personal.

Growth Exists, But It Does Not Feel Strong Enough

Canada is still growing, but the pace has not been convincing enough to restore confidence. Statistics Canada said real GDP rose 1.7% in 2025, but the economy actually contracted 0.2% in the fourth quarter. On a per capita basis, GDP was flat in that quarter. That distinction matters because people experience the economy per person, not in the aggregate. A country can post growth, yet still leave households feeling like they are standing still.

Forward-looking projections do not fully solve that problem. The federal government’s latest private-sector forecast pegs real GDP growth at 1.1% for 2026, while also expecting the economy to remain below its pre-tariff path for years. The Bank of Canada, for its part, says growth should continue at a moderate pace, but also acknowledges the economy is adjusting to tariffs, trade uncertainty, and a new energy shock. None of that reads like a boom. It reads like an economy that is functioning, but not lifting spirits, especially after several years of affordability fatigue.

The Benefits Of The Economy Look Unevenly Shared

Economic frustration deepens when people believe someone else is still doing fine. Statistics Canada’s household distribution data makes that imbalance hard to ignore. In 2025, the income gap widened as lower-income households were hurt by weaker employment-income growth and lower returns on savings. The bottom 20% of households saw average disposable income rise 2.6%, below the 3.8% average for all households, while the top 20% gained 4.1%. That is not an abstract divergence. It is the difference between barely keeping up and moving ahead.

Wealth tells an even starker story. Statistics Canada said the top 20% of households by wealth held 65.7% of Canada’s total net worth at the end of 2025, while the bottom 40% held just 3.0%. Average net worth for the least wealthy households was only $81,650. When stock markets rise but large parts of the population feel little benefit, national optimism does not naturally follow. A country can look resilient in aggregate while still leaving many people convinced the system is working best for asset owners, not for wage earners or renters.

Where Canadians Live Still Shapes How They Feel

The pessimism is national, but it is not uniform. The CityNews poll showed especially negative readings in Alberta, where 73% said the economy was on the wrong track. Ontario was also deeply negative at 68%, while British Columbia and Quebec were not far behind. That pattern matters because it suggests the mood is not being driven by a single troubled province. It is broad enough to be national, yet varied enough to show how local conditions, politics, and industry mix with the bigger picture.

Other polling echoes the uneven geography. Abacus found Alberta to be the least optimistic province on direction-of-country measures, while Atlantic Canada and Ontario were relatively more upbeat. That does not mean those regions feel good; it means they feel less bad. Regional divergence matters because it complicates the national narrative. An oil-producing province may benefit from higher crude, while households there still dislike the wider economy. Central Canada may enjoy some rate relief, while residents remain stressed about housing and living costs. The result is a country sharing one mood, but for somewhat different reasons.

Relief May Be Coming, But Canadians Have Heard That Before

There are reasons to think confidence could improve. The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on April 29 and expects inflation to ease back toward 2% in 2027. RBC says housing affordability has improved from its worst levels, even if the gains are becoming weaker and more uneven. The federal government’s spring update also argues Canada is entering this uncertain period from a position of relative resilience. In short, there are signs that the economy may stabilize rather than deteriorate sharply.

But public trust does not rebound on forecast alone. Canadians have already lived through years in which “improvement” often meant prices rising less quickly, not life becoming meaningfully easier. That is why the wrong-track finding carries weight. It reflects not just current hardship, but also a loss of faith that relief will be broad, fast, or durable. Until paycheques stretch further, housing feels genuinely attainable, and economic gains are seen across income levels, many households are likely to keep answering the same way: the economy may be functioning, but it still does not feel like it is working for them.

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