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Confidence in institutions

Domain

Good governance

Subdomain

Democracy and institutions

Indicator

Confidence in institutions

Note: This indicator is a headline indicator. Headline indicators are intended to provide a high-level assessment of overall quality of life in Canada.

Confidence in institutions over time
Description - Confidence in institutions over time

Proportion of the population reporting high confidence (score of 4 or 5) in institutions

Confidence in institutions over time
Police Justice system School system Canadian media Federal Parliament
Q2 2022 64.9% 48.7% 50.8% .. 33.9%
Q3 2022 .. .. .. .. ..
Q4 2022 62.2% 46.4% 47.2% 31.2% 32.4%
Q1 2023 .. .. .. .. ..
Q2 2023 60.6% 42.1% 43.9% 29.8% 28.0%
Q3 2023 .. .. .. .. ..
Q4 2023 65.1% 48.6% 44.8% 36.7% 28.1%
Q1 2024 .. .. .. .. ..
Q2 2024 .. .. .. .. ..
Q3 2024 63.5% 49.2% 45.9% 37.8% 29.6%
Q4 2024 63.4% 48.2% 45.0% 36.2% 28.3%
.. Not available for this reference period

Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Social Survey, 2022 to 2024.

Definition

Proportion of the population by level of confidence in selected types of institutions.

Measurement

This indicator is measured in the General Social Survey (GSS) - Social Identity,  the Canadian Social Survey (CSS), and the Survey Series on People and their Communities (SSPC).

In the GSS on Social Identity, survey respondents are asked:

Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means "No confidence at all" and 5 means "A great deal of confidence" […]

How much confidence do you have in the following institutions?

  1. The police
  2. The justice system and courts
  3. The school system
  4. Federal Parliament
  5. Banks
  6. Major corporations
  7. Local merchants and business people
  8. The Canadian media

The CSS asked the following question:

Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means "No confidence at all" and 5 means "A great deal of confidence", please answer the following questions.

How much confidence do you have in the following institutions?

  1. The police
  2. The justice system and courts
  3. The school system
  4. Federal Parliament
  5. The Canadian media

Please note that the fifth category of the Canadian media was added in CSS Wave 7 and Wave 9.

Data sources

Data tables and analysis

For products related to confidence in institutions, including data tables, data visualizations, articles, and other product types see Analytical releases: Confidence in institutions or view all analytical releases.

Frameworks

This indicator aligns with the following frameworks:

Additional information

The crowdsourcing initiative Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians - Trust in Others included a series of questions on levels of "trust" in institutions.

Unlike other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada, crowdsourcing data are not collected under a design using probability-based sampling. Therefore, caution should be exercised when interpreting the findings, and no inferences about the overall Canadian population should be made based on these results.

The Survey Series on First Nations People, Métis and Inuit (SSFNPMI) (Emergency Preparedness and Extreme Weather -EPEW: November 18 – December 15, 2024) ask related questions.

The SSFNPMI asks:

Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means "No confidence at all" and 5 means "A great deal of confidence", how much confidence do you have in each of the following public services to respond to an extreme weather event or natural disaster?

  1. Police
  2. Fire services
  3. Emergency medical services
  4. Military
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