Trust in others

Proportion of the population by trust in others.

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 the following:

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people?

• Most people can be trusted
• You cannot be too careful in dealing with people

Using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means "Cannot be trusted at all" and 5 means "Can be trusted completely", what is your level of trust in each of the following groups of people?

• People in your family
• People in your neighbourhood
• People you work with
• People you go to school with
• People who speak a different language than you
• People with a different religion than you
• People with a different ethnic or cultural background than you
• Strangers

How many people do you trust in your neighbourhood?

Is it:

• Most of the people
• Many of the people
• A few of the people
• Nobody

The CSS (Wave 5) asked the following:

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people?

• Most people can be trusted
• You cannot be too careful in dealing with people

Using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means "Cannot be trusted at all" and 5 means "Can be trusted completely", what is your level of trust in each of the following groups of people?

• People in your family
• People in your neighbourhood
• People you work with
• People you go to school with
• People who speak a different language than you
• People with a different religion than you
• People with a different ethnic or cultural background than you
• Strangers

How many people do you trust in your neighbourhood?

• Most of the people
• Many of the people
• A few of the people
• Nobody

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians: Data Collection Series collected information from crowdsourcing participants on trust in others during the pandemic in an iteration that ran from May 26 to June 8, 2020 entitled Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians - Trust in Others. Respondents were asked:

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or most people can't be trusted?

• Most people can be trusted
• Most people can't be trusted

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.

• General Social Survey (GSS) - Social Identity
  • Table 43-10-0064-01 – Sense of belonging to the local community, town, province and Canada and trust in people, by groups designated as visible minorities and selected sociodemographic characteristics, 2020
• Canadian Social Survey (CSS)
  • Table 45-10-0075-01 – Trust in others, by gender and province
  • Table 45-10-0076-01 – Trust in others, by gender and other selected sociodemographic characteristics
  • Table 45-10-0098-01 – General trust in people by gender and province
  • Table 45-10-0099-01 – General trust in others by gender and other selected sociodemographic characteristics
• Survey Series on People and their Communities (SSPC)

• Trust in neighbours (Statistics Canada – Infographics, April 19, 2023)

• Recently evicted people tend to be younger, have financial difficulties, and report having low trust in others (The Daily, April 12, 2024)
• Do Canadians trust their neighbours? (StatsCAN Plus, April 19, 2023)
• Crowdsourcing participants' trust in governments, public health authorities, businesses and others during the COVID-19 pandemic (The Daily, June 26, 2020)

The GSS on social identity asks respondents this related question:

If you lost a wallet or purse that contained two hundred dollars, how likely is it to be returned with the money in it, if it was found:

1. By a neighbour
2. By a police officer
3. By a stranger
   • Very likely
   • Somewhat likely
   • Not at all likely

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians: Data Collection Series includes additional questions about trust such as:

Using a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 means "cannot be trusted at all" and 5 means "can be trusted a lot", how much do you trust information from each of the following sources?

• Family or friends