Fewer Canadians are confident in 2025 than in 2021 that votes are always counted fairly in this country, research by Environics has found.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Conservative Party supporters are increasingly concerned about how democracy is working in Canada and are losing their trust in elections, according to a newly released survey.
The poll, conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research as part of an international series, found that about seven in 10 Canadians were satisfied or very satisfied with the way democracy works in this country.
Satisfaction was highest among Liberal Party supporters, at 89 per cent, while Conservatives – for the first time since the biennial survey began in 2010 – were almost equally divided between those who were satisfied and those who were dissatisfied.
Just 52 per cent of Conservative supporters were satisfied or very satisfied with Canadian democracy, down from 89 per cent in 2014, when the Conservative Party was still in power.
However, the survey found that seven in 10 Conservative supporters continue to believe “democracy is preferable to any other form of government,” which is similar to the responses from Liberal and NDP supporters.
Seventy-one per cent of NDP supporters said they were satisfied or very satisfied with Canada’s democracy, up five points from the last survey in 2023.
Overall satisfaction was highest in Quebec, at 78 per cent, and lowest in Alberta, at 62 per cent.
The federal Conservatives have lost four elections since 2015 under four different leaders: current leader Pierre Poilievre, Erin O’Toole, Andrew Scheer and former prime minister Stephen Harper. Despite these defeats, the Conservatives won the popular vote in the 2019 and 2021 elections, which saw the Liberals win enough ridings to form minority governments.
“It is understandable that after four consecutive election defeats, Conservatives are less satisfied with the way the political system is unfolding for them,” said Andrew Parkin, the executive director of the Environics Institute, in an interview.
“But that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily less committed to a democratic way of life, and I think it’s really important to draw that distinction.”
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He said it is reassuring that a majority of Canadians are satisfied with our democracy.
But the research also found that fewer Canadians are confident that votes are always counted fairly in this country or that foreign governments never influence Canadian election results.
Fifty-four per cent of respondents said votes are always counted correctly and fairly, down 10 percentage points since the question was first asked in 2021. Thirty-nine per cent said this happens sometimes, and 7 per cent said votes are never counted correctly and fairly.
In 2021, 61 per cent of Conservative supporters said votes were always counted fairly, but that number has dropped to 37 per cent in 2025.
The survey found similar declines of eight percentage points among Liberal and NDP supporters.
Provincially, the most significant drop was in Quebec – from 66 per cent to 56 per cent.
Twenty per cent of respondents said it always happens that “some foreign governments may influence the election results of Canada.” Sixty-six per cent said it sometimes happens, and 14 per cent said it never happens.
“Taken together, these results suggest that, while there may be growing frustration with aspects of the democratic process in Canada among opposition party supporters, this does not necessarily amount to a weakening of support for democracy itself,” the survey concludes.
“Yet steps should be taken to reinforce overall public confidence in the way votes are received and counted (including mail-in ballots) and in the way candidate selection and elections are insulated from foreign interference.”
Environics conducted the research for the Canadian portion of the regular AmericasBarometer survey of democratic values covering 20 countries in North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.
The research was led by the LAPOP Lab at Nashville-based Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy and supported by the Calgary-based philanthropic Max Bell Foundation.
The online survey was conducted with a sample of 3,550 Canadians aged 18 and older between July 30 and Aug. 7. There is no margin of error for such a survey.
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Political scientist Alex Marland, having reviewed the Environics research, said U.S. President Donald Trump’s practice of stoking anger and frustration with institutions may have had a cross-border impact.
“Donald Trump really is pushing some of these things, which are filtered over into Canada, so I think that’s really a big element of it,” said Dr. Marland, the Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at Acadia University.
He added that populists tend to try to tear down elite structures that have been created over the years. As a result, conservatives in Canada inclined to heed Mr. Trump may be becoming wary of the political system.
Dr. Marland said he was glad the research had been conducted because it’s important to have more discussions about democracy.
“People are talking about how polarization and distrust are causing challenges in many of the pillars of things we took for granted. In order to come to solutions, we have to talk about problems.”