From One Shock to Another

The shock of the pandemic isn’t yet behind us and the shock of Ukraine is far from being understood.?We noted in our January annual look ahead for Canada that “the collective public mood will remain volatile, more down than up and driven by uncertainty in 2022”.?Three months later, there is far more uncertainty than we ever imagined.?

Canadians will line up quickly in support of almost any efforts to help Ukraine because we value human dignity, and the rule of law and peace.?On other issues like climate change, economic renewal, housing or health care we should expect gridlock and very little public consensus.?Campaigns will run, budgets will be presented, and companies will move ahead with their plans for growth and improving the environment.?Don’t expect these actions to be met with much applause from Canadians.?They appear unlikely to be in the mood to give politicians or CEOs kudos for doing the right thing.?It will take considerable effort to get the public’s attention, more effort and patience to get their support, and even more time and more convincing to get Canadians to buy in and accept any change that might have a negative impact on their finances or quality of life.

There is likely much more that will happen to shift public opinion over the next few weeks and we will be back in field early April, but below is a snapshot of our March findings.

Globally, Social Cohesion increased in 10 countries including the US and Russia.?It remained flat in 12 countries and declined in 6 countries including Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Malaysia, and Turkey.?The Ipsos?Disruption Barometer saw improved citizen/consumer sentiment in 14 countries including the US and Russia, while 7 countries stayed flat and 7 countries declined including Canada, Mexico, Chile, Belgium, Malaysia, Israel and Turkey.

In Canada, views of the direction of the country and satisfaction with the current state of Canada are at near all-time lows, and views of the overall health of the economy have fallen back to where they were in mid-2020, which is well below pre-pandemic levels.?In real terms Canada posted a strong rebound of +4.6% GDP in 2021.?However, in October we started to see a steady decline in economic confidence even though the Canadian economy was closing out the year on a high.?Two examples of this are confidence in making a large purchase (down 10% since October), and positive views of the national economy (down 9% since October).?Confidence in job security and personal finances are also down since October but not as sharply.?

Not surprisingly, 3 of the top 5 issues of concern in Canada in March are economic (housing/affordability, inflation/interest rates and the economy overall), with health care and coronavirus rounding out the top issues.?Climate change continues to decline against rising economic concerns.

Looking ahead, we will have a much better read on all countries once people have digested not only the scope of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also the size of economic impact and the humanitarian crisis ahead of us.?Our monthly Context study was in field for several days after the conflict started.?While the war was underway, the full effect of the visual images of destruction, lives lost, and the exodus of refugees had not taken effect when the survey was in field.?Nor had any of the sanctions or the overall economic fallout become evident.?

The context in which people and companies are making decisions continues to shift rapidly.?The pandemic caused fear and uncertainty, which was followed by an uneven economic recovery that widened the gap between the haves and the have nots. As we’re still dealing with these issues, the invasion of Ukraine has just started to enter the public’s consciousness. No doubt the geo-political situation will make things worse over the next few weeks and months, but Canadians showed a lack of confidence and cohesion in late 2021 that is likely to make the domestic impact of the conflict all the more disruptive.