Confidence in institutions

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

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.

• General Social Survey (GSS) - Social Identity
  • Table 43-10-0062-01 – Confidence in Canadian institutions, by groups designated as visible minorities and selected sociodemographic characteristics, 2020
• Canadian Social Survey (CSS)
  • Table 45-10-0073-01 – Confidence in institutions, by gender and province
  • Table 45-10-0074-01 – Confidence in institutions, by gender and other selected sociodemographic characteristics
• Survey Series on People and their Communities (SSPC)

• Goal 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (Sustainable Development Goals, January 25, 2024)
• Confidence in Canadian Institutions (Statistics Canada – Infographics, November 14, 2023)

• Differences in confidence in public institutions across generations of Canadians (Economic and Social Reports, August 28, 2024)
• Confidence in institutions and the media, 2023 (The Daily, February 13, 2024)
• Confidence in the police, the justice system and courts, the Federal Parliament, and the Canadian media varied across racialized groups (The Daily, March 31, 2023)
• Perceptions of and experiences with police and the justice system among the Black and Indigenous populations in Canada (Juristat, February 16, 2022)
• Public confidence in Canadian institutions (Spotlight on Canadians: Results from the General Social Survey, December 7, 2015)

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.