Canada’s Climate Paradox: Lower Priority, Higher Expectations
Even as affordability dominates the agenda, most Canadians still want stronger action and proof it works.
This past Earth Day came with a sobering headline: only 13% of Canadians now say climate change is a top personal priority, down from one in three in 2019. With affordability, housing, and the economy dominating the agenda, it’s easy to conclude that Canadians have moved on.
But the data tells a more complicated story.
In this episode, Cara Stern and Mike Moffatt dig into new polling from Abacus and Ipsos that shows concern about climate change hasn’t disappeared — it’s just evolving. Canadians still feel a moral obligation to act, many are choosing more sustainable products, and a majority believe the country should be doing more. At the same time, optimism is slipping, and more people are questioning whether individual actions actually make a difference.
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Below is an AI-generated transcript of the Missing Middle podcast, lightly edited.
Cara Stern: We just celebrated Earth Day and maybe you took part in a city cleanup or took a nature walk, but we celebrated it here at the Missing Middle by looking at some new data on Canadians’ priorities on climate change. What we read is actually pretty worrying.
Only 13% of Canadians now say climate change is a top personal priority. In 2019—so that was just seven years ago—it was 1 in 3. It topped the issues agenda heading into that election. Now, according to a new Abacus Data poll, it ranks eighth behind cost of living, the economy, health care, Trump, housing, immigration, and crime. That’s a huge drop in just seven years.
Mike Moffatt: Yeah, I often hear that people don’t care about climate change anymore, that other issues, from affordability to geopolitics, have caused us to forget about the issue, or even worse, consider the idea of fighting climate change a so-called “luxury belief” that we simply can’t afford. But you’ve been looking at some numbers that tell a bit of a different story.
Cara Stern: Exactly. There’s this narrative that as affordability has worsened, climate change just isn’t a priority anymore and buying sustainable products is a luxury households can no longer afford. But the data doesn’t actually show that.
Ipsos just released its annual 32-country survey on climate opinions, and despite inflation, the engagement is still there.
Mike Moffatt: So what are the numbers saying about what Canadians actually believe?
Cara Stern: Just under half of Canadians think our country should be doing more, and 55% agree that if individuals like them don’t act, we’re failing future generations. Clearly, Canadians still care and haven’t given up yet.
Mike Moffatt: Now, this may just be the Gen Xer in me, but it’s one thing to care in the abstract and another thing to actually do something about it. Are we seeing any changes in how people live or what they buy?
Cara Stern: Surprisingly, yes we still are. Ipsos also did a study for a company called Public, Inc. looking at consumer actions.
What they found was that people chose products based on environmental factors more last year than the year before, both in Canada and America.
Mike Moffatt: I find that really surprising given how many Canadians are just trying to get by.
Cara Stern: What really surprised me the most was that income doesn’t predict how sustainably you shop anymore. The most committed, conscious consumers are actually more price-sensitive than the least committed ones. The core group is aged 35 to 54; they have kids, they are university-educated.
Mike Moffatt: That’s not exactly the group I would have guessed before I saw this data. Though, at some level it makes sense—being a parent, particularly of a younger child, it does make someone think about the future of the planet more. You mentioned that more than half of people feel a moral obligation to act.
Cara Stern: Also when you are a parent, I can’t overstate how many plastic things you get in your household. Just so many things coming in all the time that it makes me feel like I need something more sustainable. How much plastic do my kids need to use for two years before they grow out of it and it ends up in a landfill.
Mike Moffatt: So much plastic. So very, very much plastic. You mentioned that more than half of people feel a moral obligation to act, but how does that compare to other years?
Cara Stern: It’s going down. It was about two-thirds in 2021 and it’s been trending down since. It is nice comparing the data over the last two years because I did start this by looking back at the 2024 report, which highlighted how different demographics feel about climate change and how hopeful or hopeless they feel about it all. At the time, the younger you were, the more hopeless you felt about climate change, which I feel reflects our dynamic here.
Mike Moffatt: I think it does. So how does that compare to this year’s report?
Cara Stern: There’s much more consistency across generations now, so fewer people feel like it’s too late to do anything. From most hopeful to least, it goes: Boomers, Millennials, Gen X, and then Gen Z.
Mike Moffatt: Once again, Gen X is lost here in the middle. But it’s not surprising to see Gen Z and Boomers have the biggest spread given how different their worlds have been.
Cara Stern: There’s still a big gender gap where women feel much more optimistic than men do about climate change, and that’s consistent across generations. On average, 21% of people agree there’s no point in changing their behavior anymore because it won’t make a difference, whereas half of Canadians still disagree with that.
Mike Moffatt: This is something I’ve felt a lot about in my career—that there’s always been this downside to climate messaging.
On one hand, you want people to understand the seriousness of the issue, but on the other hand, that messaging using very serious language can lead people to believe the situation is hopeless, so why bother at all?
Cara Stern: I can see where that 21% is coming from. I recycle, I bike instead of drive when it makes sense, I chose to live somewhere where I don’t need to drive everywhere, and I try to avoid limited-use plastic despite all the ones that my kids keep bringing in. But then you see the industrial emissions from billionaires and private jets and you feel like you’re so tiny. Individual efforts can feel like they matter so little.
Mike Moffatt: And I’d add that there’s this talking point that Canada is less than 2% of global emissions, so it doesn’t matter what any Canadian does. That’s always bothered me. For example, by any metric, Canada accounted for less than 2% of the activity in World War II, but our contributions in that war are something we’re all proud of, and rightfully so. That’s another kind of messaging I’ve always found problematic.
Cara Stern: That’s interesting. Although, at least Canadians are more optimistic than the rest of the world; only 17% of Canadians think climate change is totally beyond our control, compared to a global average of 25%.
I couldn’t get over how different India was compared to most other countries they surveyed. In India, that number is almost two-thirds of people who think it’s beyond our control, and they’re almost twice as pessimistic as the next most pessimistic country, which was Thailand.
Mike Moffatt: If I’m going to summarize what’s going on in Canada: we have a public that feels fairly hopeful and they’re still shopping their values despite affordability issues, but they’re starting to feel like their individual efforts are too small to matter. So who do we blame for this?
Cara Stern: If you ask many Canadians, there’s a problem at the top. Less than a third of Canadians think our country is a world leader in this fight. That’s not surprising given we just had an election where both major parties promised to cut carbon taxes and where we’re seeing targets on things like EVs degraded. Although I don’t know whether it was ever realistic to have no more gas cars sold by 2035. But half of Canadians want the government to do more, and less than a quarter don’t.
Only a quarter of Canadians think their government has a clear plan. It seems like there’s a massive mandate for policy that would help fight climate change—and I suspect that’s a lot more of a consensus than most government policies these days.
Mike Moffatt: Though, the Gen Xer in me is still somewhat skeptical. Often when I hear people say “governments should do something,” I think what’s typically being said is “government should do something as long as the costs are borne by other people and not by me and my family.”
That said, you pointed out that many Canadians are paying more for sustainable products. There’s at least a cohort of folks who are okay taking a financial hit if it means doing the right thing. But they need to trust that their actions are making a difference. They want detailed data reporting and independent journalism; they want the receipts, and I don’t think they’re seeing it.
Cara Stern: There’s one more survey I wanted to bring up that I found a little more optimistic and this is from Abacus Data. It talked about how nature and the economy can work together.
It found massive support for the government, encouraging businesses to encourage “nature-based practices to improve resilience and stability,” such as reforestation, wetland restoration, and sustainable farming.
Maybe people don’t see that having a direct effect on them, so maybe that’s why they’re okay with it. But at least most Canadians don’t seem to see the economy and the environment as being opposites all the time, which is great, because climate change is not the top issue anymore sadly.
Mike Moffatt: It’s great that so many Canadians don’t see a trade-off between the economy and the environment, because if push comes to shove and the majority feel they have to choose between affordability and climate action, they’re going to choose affordability. In my view, that’s what killed the consumer carbon tax.
Supporters of carbon pricing will point to misinformation, but I think people understood the whole point of the carbon pricing exercise was to make emissions-causing activities more expensive.
Once we had affordability getting worse after COVID, they basically said we can’t afford this anymore. And I think that’s what killed carbon pricing, so we get into dangerous territory when Canadians feel that there is a trade-off between the economy and affordability on one hand and the climate action on the other.
Cara Stern: It’s true, although the Ipsos data found that people do still make climate-friendly choices even if they cost more. Although I thought it was interesting that they had some information that they prefer products that emphasize immediate benefits rather than ones far in the future. I definitely think that sacrificing now for longer-term gain was a core part it.
Mike Moffatt: That’s why I think it’s so harmful when we get narratives that the choice has to be between affordability and climate action. Governments should be focusing on policies that simultaneously address both. For example, a couple of years ago, we wrote a report for More and Better Housing Canada on how smart housing policies can simultaneously lower monthly bills and address climate change, so we don’t have to choose between the two.
Cara Stern: How does that work?
Mike Moffatt: There are four big ways. First, we can make homeownership and rent more affordable by cutting building costs and allowing for modern, low-carbon construction methods. Often times we can’t use those in the building codes, so we have to change that.
Second, we can keep property taxes and transportation costs in check by allowing more homes to be built closer to jobs and amenities. We have to build less infrastructure that way, so you don’t have to drive as much if you live closer to where you work and shop.
Third, we can lower insurance and maintenance costs by building sturdier homes in safer areas and avoid building on floodplains. The most expensive home is the one you have to build twice, so let’s not do that.
Finally, we can reduce utility bills with energy-efficient homes and retrofits.
Cara Stern: I love when you can blend what’s good for the environment and what’s good financially. It’s pretty nice when that happens. It means people might actually get on board.
Mike Moffatt: Absolutely.
Cara Stern: Thanks so much for watching and listening. Our producer is Meredith Martin and our editor is Sean Foreman.
Mike Moffatt: If you have any thoughts or questions about building a home on a floodplain, please send us an email to [email protected].
Cara Stern: And we’ll see you next time.
Additional Reading/Listening that Helped Inform the Episode:
Low-carbon, Resilient Homes Improve Housing Affordability
Majorities Say Both Climate Action, Oil & Gas Growth Should Be Top Priorities
The environmental message is not hitting so a lot of the people advocating for a better environment have pivoted to better urbanism using affordability as the major argument for active transportation, transit, and housing density.
Speaking of paradoxes, I have gotten on a soapbox recently on the issue of biofuels. They seem to have this green halo but people should know just how much cropland is dedicated to fuelling cars instead of feeding people (for little gain if any in terms of emissions). We are talking about something like a third of the corn crop in Ontario and forty percent in the US. I guarantee that this is resulting in higher food prices.