After years of unfettered immigration, mass migration is officially one of the top 5 concerns for Canadians, overtaking climate change.
According to polling data from Abacus Data on how Canadians rate the most pressing concerns facing the country, 26% of Canadians now list immigration as one of their top three issues, while climate change has fallen to sixth place.
Moreover, ahead of untenable immigration numbers are also issues directly exacerbated by it, with those being the rising cost of living (73%), housing affordability and accessibility (47%), healthcare (44%), and the economy (34%).
And unfortunately for the Liberal Party, Abacus Data found that for all of the top issues besides healthcare (tied), Canadians believe the Conservatives are more capable of addressing the issue.
For instance, on the issue of the rising cost of living, 39% of Canadians believe the Conservatives are a better fit to tackle the problem compared with just 14% who believe the Liberals are capable. For the economy more broadly, 50% of Canadians believe the Conservatives are more capable than other parties, with only 17% and 8% believing the Liberals or NDP are more capable.
This is also in line with changing trends in voter intention, with the Conservatives seeing huge gains while Liberal support is dwindling.
Perhaps more interesting, though, is that on most of the issues that the Liberals lead the Conservatives for, i.e., social issues, voters believe the NDP could do a better job.
While the largest proportion of Canadians believe Conservatives are more capable of fixing economic-based issues, on left-wing social issues, like inequality or Indigenous reconciliation, the NDP lead the Liberals.
In fact, in terms of Canadians’ belief in a party to address an issue, the only issue the Liberals currently garner the most confidence for is climate change, which, as mentioned at the top of this article, isn’t even a top 5 issue anymore.
