Judging the judges: do we trust the Supreme Court?
Guess where trust in the Supreme Court is highest?
The Supreme Court of Canada plays a prominent role in our political system, interpreting the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and adjudicating jurisdictional disputes between the federal and provincial governments. There has been no shortage of high-profile cases in recent years, and more watershed rulings can be expected in the years ahead.
How is the highest court in the country perceived by the public?
The AmericasBarometer surveys measure trust in a range of political institutions and actors on a seven-point scale. The 2023 survey found that:
36 percent of Canadians have a high level of trust in the Supreme Court (answering 6 or 7 on the 7-point scale);
60 percent have a moderate level of trust in the Supreme Court, meaning that they give an answer above the mid-point of the scale (5 to 7);
78 percent have at least some trust in the Supreme Court, meaning that they give an answer at the mid-point or higher (4 to 7);
only 13 percent have low trust, meaning that give an answer of only 1 or 2 on the scale.
Is this good?
Two additional points help to put this in perspective. First, perhaps not surprisingly, Canadians are more likely to express a high level of trust in the Supreme Court than they are in other institutions such as Parliament or political parties. In 2023, for instance, 50 percent expressed a moderate level of trust in Parliament – 10 points below the level expressed for the highest court.
Second, trust in the Supreme Court has held steady over the years. The current level of trust is roughly similar to where it was a decade or so ago (it’s a little lower than it was in mid-2021, when all institutions enjoyed a bit of a bump-up in public trust, coinciding with the roll-out of vaccines against COVID-19).
Two further comparisons are even more interesting. The first looks across regions of the country. Guess where trust in the Supreme Court is highest?
If you guessed Quebec, then congratulations, and thank you for reading this blog and our other survey reports attentively. Since 2017, high trust in the Supreme Court is up 13 percentage points in Quebec, compared to a seven-point drop in B.C. and a nine-point drop in Alberta.
It would be tempting to try to link those changes to specific Court decisions, but likely incorrect. The same general pattern holds across a range of similar items (such as support for the country’s political institutions and system in general). Over the past decade, Quebec has gradually and quietly emerged as the part of the country where support for Canadian political institutions is highest, while levels of support in some other provinces – particularly Alberta – have ebbed.
The other striking point of comparison is with the United States.
Americans are less likely than Canadians to trust their country’s Supreme Court: 24 percent of Americans express high trust in the Court (compared to 36% of Canadians); 31 percent of Americans express low trust (compared to 13% of Canadians). But it gets even more interesting when we look at the differences among different groups of partisans.
In both countries, trust in the Court varies by vote intention. In Canada, Liberal Party supporters are more likely to express high trust than opposition party supporters. In the U.S., Republicans express more trust than Democrats.
But beyond this, two differences stand out. First, relatively few Conservative Party supporters in Canada don’t trust the Court at all – most cluster around the mid-point of the scale, while only 16 percent are at the low end. But contrast, almost one in two Democratic Party supporters (48%) in the U.S. express low trust in their country’s Supreme Court (in the wake of recent decisions on abortion, among other things). In other words, low trust in their country’s highest court is three times higher among Democrats in the U.S. than among Conservatives in Canada.
The other notable pattern is that levels of trust in Canada are similar among Conservative Party and NDP supporters. What is clearly a question that divides left and right in the United States is (once again) more nuanced in Canada.
The findings featured in this post are 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.
AmericasBarometer data for the United States were supplied by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University, which takes no responsibility for any interpretation of the data. The 2023 survey in the U.S. was conducted online with a representative sample of 1,500 Americans (aged 18 and over) between July 21 and July 26, 2023.
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Interesting that Quebec support higher than other provinces. Could possibly change with any Bill 21 SC challenge just as support in the West may have been affected by carbon tax challenges or general fed-prov tensions.