Just 16 per cent had a positive view of 2017. The online survey was released Tuesday. Dave Korzinski, research associate at Angus Reid Institute wrote by email to BNN: “Newfoundland has the highest unemployment rate of the provinces polled. We also attribute some of this to the slow energy sector in 2016, which has really hit people hard.” A summary of the findings of the survey can be found here together with a link to the entire survey.
Ontario residents were also pessimistic about the New Year, with 47 percent thinking there would be more bad than good in 2017. Ontario has a large provincial debt, and high energy prices. The Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne has the lowest approval rating of any provincial premier. Albertans plagued by low energy prices and a high unemployment rate also had an extreme negative outlook. Among the provinces, only Manitoba had a significant percentage of residents who felt that 2017 would have more good than bad at 34 percent. Only 22 percent had a negative outlook. The only other province where residents had a positive attitude were in British Columbia but only by a small margin.
Although most Canadians appear to regard 2017 as likely negative for their provinces, they are at the same time twice as likely to say that the New Year will have more good than bad for them personally. 43 percent predict it will be good for them but only 18 percent think it will be worse. This number appears to be higher or lower according to those polled view of the outlook for their province. On the prospect for Canada as a whole, 33 percent think it will be a bad year as compared to 28 percent who think it will be a good one. However, the largest group 49 percent think it will be neutral.
Uncertainty about the policy of Donald Trump and its effects have perhaps led to 59 percent of Canadians believing that more bad than good is in store for the United States while only 16 percent see more good than bad happening. Canadians are also negative about the prospect for the world as a whole in 2017. Slightly more than half of those polled, 52 percent, thought that there will be more bad than good in 2017, while just 11 percent had a positive view for the world in 2017. Even with all this pessimism 2017 still looked better than 2016 for Canadians.
