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Confidence in institutions

Domain

Good governance

Subdomain

Democracy and institutions

Indicator

Confidence in institutions

Note: This indicator is a headline indicator. Headline indicators are intended to provide a high-level assessment of overall quality of life in Canada.

Confidence in institutions data snapshot
Description - Confidence in institutions data snapshot

Proportion of the population reporting high level of confidence in selected types of institutions

Confidence in institutions
  Police Justice System School System Canadian Media Federal Parliament
Confidence in institutions 65.1% 48.6% 44.8% 36.7% 28.1%

Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Social Survey (wave 11), October to December, 2023.


Definition

Proportion of the population by level of confidence in selected types of institutions.


Measurement

This indicator is measured in the General Social Survey (GSS) - Social Identity,  the Canadian Social Survey (CSS), and the Survey Series on People and their Communities (SSPC).

In the GSS on Social Identity, survey respondents are asked:

Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means "No confidence at all" and 5 means "A great deal of confidence" […]

How much confidence do you have in the following institutions?

  1. The police
  2. The justice system and courts
  3. The school system
  4. Federal Parliament
  5. Banks
  6. Major corporations
  7. Local merchants and business people
  8. The Canadian media

The CSS asked the following question:

Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means "No confidence at all" and 5 means "A great deal of confidence", please answer the following questions.

How much confidence do you have in the following institutions?

  1. The police
  2. The justice system and courts
  3. The school system
  4. Federal Parliament
  5. The Canadian media

Please note that the fifth category of the Canadian media was added in CSS Wave 7 and Wave 9.


Data sources


Data visualizations


Data analysis


Additional information

The crowdsourcing initiative Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians - Trust in Others included a series of questions on levels of "trust" in institutions.

Unlike other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada, crowdsourcing data are not collected under a design using probability-based sampling. Therefore, caution should be exercised when interpreting the findings, and no inferences about the overall Canadian population should be made based on these results.

Frameworks

This indicator aligns with the following frameworks:

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