Canadians are feeling generally hopeful heading into 2026, but are pessimistic about the specifics of whether pressing issues at home and abroad will be resolved, a new poll suggests.
The new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News also found Canadians feel generally positive about their personal health and happiness after the past year, but less so about their financial situation and their social and romantic lives compared to 2022.
Less than half of those surveyed said they felt 2025 was a better year than they expected, while even fewer — 42 per cent — said they were able to save enough money over the previous 12 months.
Seven out of 10 Canadians said they are fearing a future recession, though that number is four points lower than what it was three years prior. And while 41 per cent said 2025 made them more fearful about their job security, that’s 11 points higher than 2022.
Despite that pessimism, 62 per cent they were feeling generally optimistic about 2026.
“I think Canadians are hoping that (next year) will be better because quite frankly, it can’t get much worse,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.
“Things have been pretty bad — not just through the space of the last year or so, but going all the way back to the beginning of COVID. And I think people are thinking that at some point, things are going to bounce back. So their optimism may be more hope than any true expectation that things are going to get better.”
Ipsos contacted 1,502 Canadians age 18 and over between Dec. 8 and 15 for the poll.
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The results show 75 per cent of respondents, when looking back on 2025, feel very or somewhat good about their health — the same share as three years ago. Seventy-two per cent felt positive about their own personal happiness, though the latter number is down five points from 2022.
Just under 60 per cent said they felt good about their financial situation, while just 56 per cent were positive about their romantic and sex lives, with both numbers down from three years prior.
Only the number of Canadians who said they were happy about their social life ticked up during that period, from 66 per cent in 2022 to 67 per cent in 2025.
Looking ahead to the new year, 59 per cent of Canadians are optimistic that their financial situation will improve, according to the poll.
However, Ipsos also found just 29 per cent believe they’ll be able to purchase and own a home, while only 22 per cent are counting on groceries getting more affordable.
That pessimism extends to political and global issues as well.
Roughly one-third of those surveyed said they believe the trade war between Canada and the U.S. will be resolved and that lasting peace will be achieved in both Ukraine and Gaza.
Although the poll suggests Canadians are generally positive about their personal health, less than half said they expect to access better public health-care services in the coming year.
Bricker said the results speak to Canadians feeling like the pandemic is further behind them, but that the overall health-care system hasn’t necessarily improved.
Overall, he said much of the cautious optimism from Canadians may be tied to public confidence in Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Ipsos polling last month showed Carney’s job approval sits at 55 per cent — 15 points higher than his Liberal Party in general, which holds just a narrow lead over the opposition Conservatives.
“There’s no buyer’s regret that we’re seeing in the electorate right now about Mark Carney,” Bricker said.
“He’s seen by Canadians as the best person to manage this sort of thing. … So I think they’re optimistic about their national leadership.”
Bricker added Carney will have his hands full with these and other issues throughout the coming year.
“I think one thing that we can say about the way 2026 is shaping up, it could end up being one of the most consequential years in Canadian history,” he said. “There’s going to be an awful lot going on.
“Based on the data, Canadians are saying, ‘We think we will have the right leadership in place, that we’ve gone through the worst of this. And hopefully we’ll be able to meet the challenges that are coming our way.’”
Bricker added: “That may be, as they say, whistling past the graveyard. We’ll have to see what happens.”
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between Dec. 8 and 15, 2025, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,502 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
