Amy Hamm: Canadian trust in institutions is at a low point — and that's a good thing

Canadians are losing trust in major institutions, including Parliament and the school system. Good — because our institutions need an overhaul. Perhaps this country isn’t a lost cause, after all.

Statistics Canada released the “confidence in institutions” results from the Canadian Social Survey for the fourth quarter of 2024 earlier this month. Survey respondents were asked to rate their confidence in police, the justice system and courts, the school system, Parliament and Canadian media. Each institution was rated on a scale of one to five.

Only 28.3 per cent of Canadians gave Parliament a rating of four or five. Media got 36.2 per cent, schools 45 per cent, the courts 48.2 per cent and police — rated the highest — had 63.4 per cent award them the highest scores.

All these institutions, except the media, have lost public confidence since 2022. (Media saw a low point in 2023 but has since gained ground, though 36.2 per cent is certainly nothing to write home about. We can probably blame the good ol’ CBC for these dismal results.)

This means that a majority of Canadians think that our largest institutions (aside from the police) are functioning somewhere between terrible and mediocre. It’s a clear condemnation of the state of our country.

This data was collected using the Canadian Social Survey, a Statistics Canada initiative that began in 2021. As such, there is no equivalent comparative data prior to this.

However, a report by Edelman Canada based on annual surveys going back 25 years argues that there is a “crisis of trust” in this country, with “distrust in leadership at an all-time high.” The research firm also found that 62 per cent of Canadians reported a “moderate or high sense of grievance” towards government, businesses and the wealthy in 2025.

“Grievance” towards government, in the Edelman survey, was measured in terms of agreement with the notion that the Canadian government serves the interests of all citizens equally and fairly, versus only serving particular groups, and whether government actions improve or harm our quality of life.

It’s an odd feeling, to be pleased that so many Canadians are admittedly unhappy and resentful of the establishment. But it is Canadians’ complacency that has gotten us into our current state of being. Namely, we have outsourced our critical thinking to woke “progressives,” who tell us what we are allowed to think, say and do.

We have unquestioningly accepted the erosion of our Charter rights and freedoms at the behest of these same actors, forgetting — most painfully — the importance of free expression in a free and democratic country. And we have stood idly by as crime has risen, life has become unaffordable and our once-proud institutions have become unreliable and unrecognizable.

Perhaps we are now, finally, on the brink of change. Yet the most puzzling part of this data is its contrast with federal election results. The Liberals have systematically degraded our institutions — but Canadians just won’t give them the boot. It feels a bit like a toxic relationship that our citizens are afraid to leave. We deserve better.

That said, a change in government will not be a panacea, either. Those of us who are unhappy with Canada’s status quo are going to have to do more than just express our anger at the ballot box or through Statistics Canada surveys.

Our well-being, our children’s futures and our country are at stake. Voting and surveys aren’t enough, nor will these actions remove the zealots who currently run many of our non-governmental institutions (such as the professional regulators who’ve deemed themselves this country’s unofficial thought police, or the public educators who believe they hold supremacy over the minds of our children).

We must exercise our rights and freedoms as though Canada’s life depends upon it — because, right now, it does. We need to communicate our demands to our leaders, political and otherwise.

We have allowed activist judges, educators, politicians, public-health officials and bureaucrats to operate without accountability in our complacent, “polite” Canadian society for too many years. We are now all paying a terrible price.

At least the majority of us can recognize it. But if we are truly this displeased, we need to do something about it.

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