December 19, 2022 — Just in time for the festive season, Pollara Strategic Insights today released the fourth edition of our Rage Index, with the level of overall rage and anger reaching a new high.
Despite Canadians expressing a high level of happiness about the holidays, they are also feeling angry about inflation and new, controversial plans by provincial governments in Alberta and Ontario. Despite falling gas prices, Canadians are angrier about inflation today than they were during the summer. This may be a partially responsible for the overall Rage Index score hitting a new high this month, rising from October’s high of 15% to 18% this month.
Within the provinces, a majority of Ontarians have express negative emotions about Premier Ford’s plan to rezone parts of the Greenbelt (62%), and the majority of Albertans have negative feelings about Premier Smith’s Sovereignty Act (52%).
Looking more broadly, Canadians are three times more likely to be angry (32%) than happy (11%) about Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk buying Twitter. Of course, most Canadians are ambivalent about this development – a good reminder that Twitter is not real life.
Despite all of these sources of anger, Canadians can still smile when they look ahead to the holidays. A majority (55%) are happy or pleased about the festive season, whereas just 12% are annoyed or angry.
See the full details in our report and commentary on the study in the Toronto Star.
