Government Should Have Acted Sooner to Reduce COVID Cases, Say Nearly Two in Three Canadians

Toronto, ON, February 10, 2021 – Nearly a year into the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to spread across the country. Though the caseload in some provinces appears to have peaked, the situation remains precarious, particularly with the recent detection of several mutated strains of the virus that have the potential to spread rapidly if not contained.

As the situation evolves, the latest Ipsos polling for Global News finds that there is widespread dissatisfaction at the roll-out of preventive measures by government at all levels, with a majority saying that more should have been done, and sooner.

Nearly two in three Canadians (63%) say that governments should have enacted stricter measures (travel bans, curfews, lockdowns, etc.) sooner in order to try and avoid the high number of case counts we now have. A little more than one in three (37%) take the opposite view, saying governments made the best decisions they could based on data available to them at the time, in an effort to keep the economy as open as possible.

Younger Canadians appear somewhat more sympathetic to the pressures placed on governments: 42% of those aged 18-34 and 35-54 say governments made the best decisions they could based on the available data, compared to just 30% of those aged 55 and over. Interestingly, parents of kids under 18 – who have been forced to adapt to multiple changes in government strategy on education – are also more likely than Canadians without kids in the home to take this view (46% vs. 35%, respectively).

The Blame Game

While a majority of Canadians clearly think the government could have done a better job at handling the pandemic, assigning blame for the situation is not as clear-cut as one might think. Asked who is most to blame for the high COVID-19 case count in Canada, no one entity emerges as the obvious culprit.

Indeed, Canadians are more likely to blame themselves and each other than any other entity: three in ten (31%) say that individual Canadians are most to blame, for not following social-distancing protocols as closely as they should.

Government comes in second place, with two in ten (21%) pointing the finger at either the Federal government for not showing strong leadership nationally (16%), or their provincial government for not showing strong leadership provincially (5%). Very few see businesses (2%) or pharmaceutical companies (2%) as being the most to blame.

Some interesting differences emerge at the subgroup level:

• Canadians aged 18-34 are significantly more likely to see their provincial government (10%, vs. 4% of those 35-54 and 2% of those 55+) or pharmaceutical companies (7%, vs. 1% of those 35-54 and 0% of those 55+) as being the most to blame for the high case count.
• Higher-income Canadians with a household income of $100K (who likely have an easier time adapting to social distance and PPE protocols than those with frontline jobs where working from home is not an option) are more are more likely to blame their fellow Canadians for not doing more to social distance (37% vs. 25% of those with a household income under $40K).
• Residents of BC (40%), Quebec (35%) and Atlantic Canada (35%) are more likely than Albertans (21%) to blame individual Canadians.
• Albertans (37%), by contrast, are more likely than Ontarians (24%) or Atlantic Canadians (21%) to say that no one is to blame – we’re all in this together.
• Ontario residents (18%) are more likely than those in BC (9%) or Atlantic Canada (8%) to blame the Federal government.

Overall, one in four (26%) say that all parties must accept an equal share of the blame, leaving just 18% of Canadians who feel that we’re all in this together, and that nobody is to blame.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between February 2-3, 2021, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Darrell Bricker
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001
[email protected]

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