Canadians trust their family doctor more than PM on COVID-19, poll suggests

Health professionals enjoy more support than WHO, Trudeau, media

OTTAWA— Canadians trust health professionals like their family doctor first and foremost when it comes to the COVID-19 crisis, a new poll suggests.

The poll, conducted by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies, asked respondents to rate their level of trust in various institutions, including public health officials and politicians.

Health professionals like doctors and nurses had the highest level of trust, with 92 per cent support. Public health officials, generally, followed close behind at 81 per cent, while 72 per cent of respondents said they trusted chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam.

That’s no surprise, said Christian Bourque, executive vicepresident of Leger. He said most people trust the people they’re closest to.

“I was expecting more of a gap between those who you interact with versus those that you see,” he said.

The World Health Organization, which has faced criticism, including from the Conservatives, for how it responded to the coronavirus in China, was trusted by 68 per cent of Canadians. Fifty-four per cent said they trusted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

At the lower end of the spectrum, only 50 per cent of Canadians said they trust the media, though that has been the case for a long time and has not changed as a result of the pandemic, Bourque said.

The trust Canadians show in their institutions ranked much higher than those of respondents from the United States in most categories, although President Donald Trump had the support of 12 per cent of Canadians compared to 38 per cent of respondents in the U.S.

The poll, conducted April 1719, surveyed 1,504 adult Canadians and 1,001 adult Americans randomly recruited from Leger’s

online panel. Internetbased surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they are not considered random samples.

Bourque said trust in institutions may be why Canadians have been so faithful about abiding by physical distancing measures over the past several weeks.

The number of people who feel the worst the pandemic is yet to come is shrinking, from 56 per cent last week to 39 per cent this week.

Fear of contracting the virus appears to have peaked in early April, when 76 per cent said they were afraid of catching COVID-19. That number has now dropped to 69 per cent.