'More sweet than sour': New survey shows Canadians are optimistic entering 2024

Canadians are welcoming 2024 with optimism, according to data from Angus Reid Institute (Pexels/Tirachard Kumtanom)

After emerging out of a year of international conflict, wildfires and inflation, Canadians are welcoming 2024 with optimism.

That’s according to new data from the Angus Reid Institute, which found that a plurality of Canadians believe the good will outweigh the bad this year.

More than two in five surveyed Canadians (44 per cent) have an optimistic outlook for 2024, outnumbering the 40 per cent of respondents who expect “an average year,” according to Angus Reid.

Only 17 per cent of Canadian respondents felt the incoming year would be worse than previous years, Angus Reid said on their website.

The research firm found that 46 per cent of respondents believe they will see improvements in their physical health, while 39 per cent believe they will improve their mental health. Forty-one per cent believe they will improve their overall quality of life, according to the data.

Angus Reid noted that “sources of despair” include financial concern, with 20 per cent of respondents expecting their financial pressure to increase, and general stress, which 19 per cent of respondents voiced concern about.

The last of those was particularly troubling for younger Canadians, with more than one-quarter of respondents aged 18 to 34 saying they expect an increase in stress in 2024, doubling the 13 per cent of respondents older than 54 who say the same.

Money woes appeared to be tied to this fear of stress, Angus Reid reports. One quarter of respondents under the age of 35 said they expect their “personal financial situation to worsen in 2024.”

The new year negativity and optimism found in this data can be divided regionally. Angus Reid says “there are larger pockets of negativity on the east coast,” and that one quarter in Atlantic Canada “say they expect more bad than good from 2024, the most in the country.”

More than half of the respondents in Saskatchewan (52 per cent) see positive things coming for them in the new year, and slightly less than half of respondents in Quebec also believe 2024 "will offer more sweet than sour.”

METHODOLOGY

The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Dec. 15-19, 2023 among a representative randomized sample of 1,516 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI.