Carney's astonishing approval rating

A government projecting a $78.3 billion deficit just posted a 68% approval rating. Youth unemployment sits at 13.8%. Grocery prices are climbing faster than in any other G7 nation. Nearly seven million Canadians cannot find a family doctor. And the governing Liberals lead the Conservatives by 16 points.

Something has broken in the feedback loop between material conditions and political accountability. Understanding what broke, and why it matters, is more important than any single election result.

The Numbers Nobody Is Asking About

The Carney government's 2025 budget projects a deficit of $78.3 billion for fiscal year 2025-2026, up from $48.3 billion the previous year. The Montreal Economic Institute called it the largest deficit in Canadian history outside the pandemic. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated a mere 7.5% probability that the government's own fiscal anchor of a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio will hold through the forecast period. National debt is projected to reach $1.48 trillion, saddling every newborn Canadian with roughly $33,000 in federal debt before they take their first breath.

The labour market tells a similar story. Statistics Canada's March 2026 Labour Force Survey recorded youth unemployment at 13.8%, with the recent peak reaching 14.6% in September 2025. February saw 84,000 net job losses, driven by a 108,000 decline in full-time positions. The February report was described by Indeed's senior economist Brendon Bernard as one of the weakest monthly prints in recent memory.

At the grocery store, Canadians are paying more than any of their G7 peers. Food inflation hit 5.4% in February 2026, down from 7.3% in January but still the highest rate among G7 nations. Beef prices rose 13.9% year over year. Chicken climbed more than 9%. Dalhousie University's Food Price Report projects an average family of four will spend $17,572 on food in 2026, nearly $1,000 more than last year, with food prices now 27% higher than five years ago.

In healthcare, the Canadian Medical Association reports that over 6.5 million Canadians lack a regular family doctor. The federal government anticipates a shortage of 78,000 doctors by 2031 and 117,600 nurses by 2030, and the trend is worsening: for every 100 nurses under 35 who registered to practise, 40 others did not renew their registration in 2023, according to the MEI. The crisis is not abstract. In Maple Ridge, B.C., Ridge Meadows Hospital has diverted its maternity ward eight times since December 2025, sending women in active labour to hospitals in Langley or Surrey because it cannot staff enough obstetricians. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of B.C. calls it a provincial maternity crisis. This is what a healthcare system looks like when it is running out of people willing to work inside it.

By every metric that directly affects the daily lives of Canadians, conditions are deteriorating. Under any normal political circumstances, these numbers would be fatal for an incumbent government.

The Shield

These are not normal political circumstances. The Trump administration's tariff threats and hostile rhetoric toward Canadian sovereignty have fundamentally altered what Canadians are evaluating when pollsters ask whether they approve of their government. The question they hear is not "is your life getting better?" It is "do you support Canada standing up for itself?"

This is the rally-around-the-flag effect, and it is one of the most documented phenomena in political science. External threat perception triggers tribal solidarity. George W. Bush reached 90% approval after September 11th while the economy was in recession. The mechanism is not mysterious: when citizens feel their nation is under attack, they rally to whoever holds the seat of power, regardless of domestic performance.

The Hub's analysis of Carney's one-year mark noted that Canadians view Carney as a capable manager of complexity in a volatile global environment. His approval is not built on delivery. It is built on the perception of competence in crisis. That distinction matters enormously, because it means the government faces no domestic accountability pressure. As long as Trump remains the central character in Canadian politics, Carney can run record deficits, watch youth unemployment climb, and lose healthcare workers without any of it registering as a political cost.

Why This Should Worry Everyone

The danger here is not partisan. It is structural. A government insulated from accountability by external threat has no incentive to fix the problems that are making life worse for the people it governs. The deficit will continue to grow. Food prices will continue to climb. Young Canadians will continue to struggle for employment. Doctors and nurses will continue to leave. And none of it will matter politically, because the conversation never shifts to domestic performance.

This dynamic has a historical pattern, and it does not end well. Popular mandates built on external threats are precisely the conditions under which institutional constraints erode. The leader becomes synonymous with the nation. Criticism of policy becomes indistinguishable from disloyalty. The opposition is cast not as an alternative government but as a threat to unity. Canadians have watched this script play out in other countries. They should recognize it when it plays out in their own.

The question Canadian media should be asking is simple: by what domestic metric is this government succeeding? If the answer is none, then the 68% approval rating is not evidence of good governance. It is evidence that accountability has been suspended, and no one in a position to restore it seems interested in trying.

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