One year into Mark Carney’s tenure as prime minister, 42% of Canadians say the country is headed in the right direction — and they are 30 points more optimistic about Canada than they are about the rest of the world, the widest such gap since Carney took office.
A new Abacus Data survey of 1,931 adults, conducted March 4–11, puts the Liberals 11 points ahead of the Conservatives — their widest national margin since August 2021.
Government approval has climbed 15 points over the past year, from 41% to 56%. More respondents said the Liberals deserve re-election than said it was time for a change. Margin of error was ±2.2%.
“This is not simply a reflection of partisan consolidation,” Abacus Data CEO David Coletto wrote on X. “It reflects a broader shift in the political environment.” Pessimism about the broader world, by contrast, remains overwhelming — 70% of Canadians say the world is headed in the wrong direction, a figure that has barely moved.
Driving much of that shift is Donald Trump. The US president and his administration now rank as the second most important issue facing Canada, named by 41% of respondents — a figure that has risen sharply in recent months.
The cost of living still leads at 65%, but Trump’s place in the Canadian political conversation has moved from background concern to the defining frame of this government’s foreign policy.
At this point, the stakes are no longer abstract. Canada has military personnel stationed at the Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, where satellite imagery analyzed by La Presse showed the Canadian section — known locally as Camp Canada — appeared to have been damaged in an Iranian missile strike on March 1.
The Department of National Defence said all Canadian personnel in the region were safe and accounted for, but declined to confirm damage, citing operational security. The strike went unreported publicly for nearly two weeks, drawing sharp criticism from Conservative defence critic James Bezan, who called the government’s silence “really shameful.”
Carney returned last week from a defence-focused trip to Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories, then Norway and London.
Related: Canada Unveils $35 Billion Arctic Defense Expansion In Latest US Rebuke
In Norway, he observed NATO’s Exercise Cold Response and met with the leaders of all five Nordic nations — the first visit to Norway by a Canadian prime minister since 1980. In London, he held bilateral talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer focused on the Middle East and Ukraine.
The trip came as his government announced Canada will increase oil production by 140,000 barrels per day starting in April — mainly from already-planned Alberta oil sands growth — as Canada’s contribution to an IEA emergency release aimed at stabilizing markets rattled by the Hormuz closure.
The poll was conducted after a floor-crossing by NDP MP Lori Idlout to the Liberal caucus, edging the government closer to a working majority.
The ongoing Canada-US-Mexico Agreement review — formal negotiations have already begun — remains the next major test for a government whose approval has climbed precisely because it has, so far, managed to hold its ground against Washington.
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