Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research.
Nik Nanos is The Globe and Mail's pollster and chairman of Nanos Research. Follow him on Twitter at @niknanos.
If you were told that one of every two people in a country somewhere else thought their children would be worse off than their parents, would you imagine civil unrest and protests in the streets? Perhaps anger? Maybe frustration?
It's not a foreign land or a developing country whose citizens think that way. It's Canada. A recent survey commissioned by Nanos indicates that 51 per cent of Canadians think that the next generation of Canadians will have a standard of living lower than Canadians today. Almost three of 10 (28 per cent) expect it to be the same and a paltry 14 per cent say the standard of living will be higher (the rest were unsure).
The kicker is that since 2012, when Nanos last asked this very same question, negative sentiment has jumped 14 percentage points from 37 to 51 per cent.
The silent majority now has a foreboding sense of the future.
The interesting twist is that although sentiment swung negative after the 2008 market meltdown, in short order it turned positive as Canadians realized that the Great Recession was something that primarily occurred someplace else. Buoyed up by a high price of a barrel of oil, Canada's petro-dollar helped the nation get through the turbulence witnessed in other places.
There are a number of indicators that suggest 2016 could very well be a foul year for the economy.
First, weekly tracking in the Bloomberg-Nanos Canadian Confidence Index which initially showed a bout of election economic exuberance, now is trending decidedly negative. Canadians are reporting increasing concern about the future strength of the economy, economic mood in the West is in a confidence spiral and Ontarians' views on the economy are also trending down.
Second, in a recent survey on consumer spending for CTV News, many Canadians are saying they are either delaying major purchases (51 per cent) or outright cancelling them (another 12 per cent). And it would seem there will be no escape for many Canadians. The same survey suggested that one of four Canadians will spend less on their vacation in 2016 and another 12 per cent are outright cancelling their vacation. The prophesy of an economic slowdown may be fulfilled by the behaviour of people who might be able to afford to spend as they usually do but hesitate.
Third, setting aside the drop in the price of a barrel of oil, the drop in the Canadian dollar is likely the simplest signal of economic weakness that consumers see. A higher dollar, to many, signals a strong economy and more purchasing power. Interestingly, average consumers equate positive sentiment with a strong dollar and negative sentiment with a weak dollar. Think of Canadians watching an increasing weaker dollar a sign that there are few bright spots on the economic horizon.
This all points to a potential bunker mentality. Worried about where their children will have jobs, concerned about the fragility of the economy today, spending stops and people hunker down. Whether it's ironic or characteristically Canadian, the economic mood remains silent but is definitely dark.