Feeling cancelled?
A growing minority feel they have very little freedom to express their political views
Do Canadians feel they have enough freedom to express their political views without fear?
Generally speaking, yes. But the proportion that feels they have very little freedom has increased since 2017.
Currently, two in three Canadians (67%) say that people in this country currently have enough freedom to express political views without fear. However, this is fewer than in 2017, when the figure stood at 75 percent. The proportion saying Canadians have very little freedom to express political views without fear has increased over that period, from 16 percent to 25 percent. Eight percent today say there is too much freedom to express political views without fear, virtually unchanged from the seven percent who felt this way in 2017.
The proportion that believes there is very little freedom to express political views without fear is somewhat higher among Albertans (31%), among those living in smaller communities with populations of fewer than 100,000 people (31%), among those without a post-secondary education (33%), those who support the federal Conservative Party (35%), and those on right of the political spectrum (38%).
More important than these factors, however, are opinions on other social issues: those who hold minority opinions on such things as immigration, gender equality, LGBTQ2S+ rights and climate change are much more likely than average to say that people in this country currently have very little freedom to express political views without fear. This includes:
those who think that the number of immigrants in Canada should be decreased a lot (50%);
those who think that climate change would not be a serious problem for Canada even if nothing is done to reduce it (44%);
those who strongly agree than men are better political leaders than women (43%);
those who disapprove of same-sex couples having the right to marry (41%);
and those who would be uncomfortable with having a gay, lesbian or bisexual person as prime minister (39%).
Not surprisingly, the groups that are most likely to say there is very little freedom are also those whose opinions have changed the most since 2017. While the proportion saying there is very little freedom in Canada to express political views without fear increased by nine percentage points overall, it increased by 16 points among Albertans and those on right of the political spectrum, and by 15 points among those living in smaller communities with populations of fewer than 100,000 people, and those without a postsecondary education. It also increased by 16 points among those who disapprove of same-sex couples having the right to marry, and by 22 points among those who think that climate change would not be a serious problem for Canada even if nothing is done to reduce it.
It is perhaps not surprising that those who feel out of step with the priorities of the current Liberal government in Ottawa, such as fighting climate change and defending LGBTQ2S+ rights, might increasingly perceive a lack of room to express their views. What is not clear from this particular survey is whether this is an inevitable part of the political cycle – where the winning party’s supporters naturally feel more included than its opponents – or a more worrying sign of a society that is becoming less tolerant of political dissent.
This data presented in this post is from the Canadian portion of the 2023 AmericasBarometer. The AmericasBarometer is a biennial comparative survey of democratic values and behaviours that covers countries in North, Central and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean (the 2023 survey covers 25 countries). The project is led by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University.
The survey is the most comprehensive source of information about support for democracy in Canada. Follow the Environics Institute to catch more reports from this survey.
The 2023 AmericasBarometer in Canada survey was conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with LAPOP at Vanderbilt University. It was conducted online with a representative sample of 2,500 Canadians (aged 18 and over) between July 20 and August 4, 2023. The author is solely responsible for any errors of presentation or interpretation.
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