There is never any shortage of reasons to track the ups and downs of regional grievances in Canada: Every year brings new developments that fuel perceptions of regional winners and losers. Over the past 18 months, however, a unique event came into play: the COVID-19 pandemic. Did the collective response to a national emergency create a sense of common purpose that transcends our regional differences? Or did it widen existing gaps between those who feel the country\u2019s federal system works in their favour, and those who feel it does not?<\/p>\n
Our latest Confederation of Tomorrow survey of Canadians<\/a> finds that, despite the scale of the emergency, there has been more continuity than change in Canadian attitudes about the federation. Most importantly, the experience has not upended Canadians\u2019 longstanding preference for a decentralized federation with strong provincial governments.<\/p>\n The annual comprehensive survey, which began in 2019, allows us to explore this issue in depth. These surveys of more than 5,000 Canadians each, with meaningful sub-samples in each province and territory, include a wide range of questions about how the federation works, and how it could work better. The second edition of the survey was conducted in January 2020, shortly before the pandemic told hold in Canada. The third edition was conducted in February 2021, on the eve of the third wave. The research team identified three important questions that new survey data could help answer.<\/p>\n To what extent was the public response to the pandemic shaped by differences in regional political cultures?<\/strong><\/p>\n Efforts to limit the spread of COVID have depended on the willingness of citizens to modify their behaviour to conform with public health guidelines, notably those relating to physical distancing, wearing masks and getting vaccinated. Two assumptions led to an expectation that compliance might vary significantly across regions of the country. The first is that certain regions (for instance, the West) are more individualist or non-conformist in outlook, while others (for instance, Quebec) are more collectivist. The second is that certain regions are less supportive of the federal government and therefore less inclined to accept made-in-Ottawa rules.<\/p>\n Yet the Confederation of Tomorrow 2021 survey found that there was widespread agreement<\/a> across the country on key aspects of the response to the pandemic, including the requirement to wear masks in public, the importance of getting vaccinated and the need for a prudent approach to reopening the economy. Asked to choose between a faster or slower reopening, for instance, the more cautious option was favoured by almost two-thirds of residents of each province, ranging from a low of 64 per cent in Alberta, to a high of 79 per cent in Quebec (figure 1).<\/p>\n