TORONTO – The COVID-19 pandemic that has transformed the number of us who live since it first gained attention almost two years ago is no longer the number one concern of Canadians, according to the latest Nanos Research poll.
The latest issue tracking data revealed that 17.1% of respondents ranked “the environment” as their top national concern, overtaking the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time since March 2020.
“This week in Nanos, tracking the coronavirus was not, I repeat, the main national issue,” said Nik Nanos, founder and chief data scientist at Nanos Research, in the latest episode of the Trend Line podcast of CTV. “It was the environment that worried Canadians and the environment has increased over the past few weeks with concern about the coronavirus on the decline.”
Overall, 14.9% of those polled called COVID-19 their top national problem, along with healthcare (11.9%), employment and the economy (11.1%) and the national deficit (4.7%) lagging behind.
“I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the environment is not necessarily more important, but the coronavirus,” Nanos said. “People (feel) a little more comfortable, a little more normalization of people’s lives. The children are back to school. People are thinking of going back to work and, therefore, less worry about the coronavirus. “
Before the pandemic, the Nanos poll shows that the environment was the number one national concern of Canadians (20.5%), followed by employment (15.4%), health care (12.3%) and national deficit (4.9%).
In last month’s federal election, the environment was a hot topic for parties.
The Liberals have pledged to push the oil and gas sector and the whole country to net zero emissions by 2050, end all plastic waste by the end of this decade, and phase out public funding for fossil fuels.
The party also pledged to create a $ 2 billion fund to diversify the economy in provinces more heavily dependent on natural resources.
The next episode of Trend Line is October 19.
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