OTTAWA — Shaken by disastrous COVID-19 outbreaks and environmental uncertainties, Prairie residents are starting to direct their longstanding ire with Ottawa toward their own provincial governments.
A plurality of Manitobans and Albertans say no level of government best represents their interests, in polling the Environics Institute describes as a stark shift in how Western alienation manifests.
“In recent years, frustration with the federal government has ebbed, while dissatisfaction with the approach of Prairie provincial governments to key issues has grown,” reads a recent report from the non-partisan polling firm.
“The recent trend in the region has not been an increase in anger toward the federal government, but a decrease in support for provincial positions.”
The three governments for the Prairie provinces have all faced a decline in trust from citizens since 2019.
The polling firm says the drop in support stems from opposing groups upset over COVID-19 restrictions: those who oppose government intervention and those who felt not enough was done to stem deadly outbreaks.
The online survey was conducted between Jan. 18 and Feb. 10, after the omicron variant ripped through cities such as Winnipeg, and just as convoys opposing vaccination mandates started to occupy Parliament Hill and border crossings.
Across Canada, those who say their own province is the level of government that best represents their interests has varied during the pandemic — except in the Prairies, where that sentiment has tumbled.
Just one-fifth of Manitobans say the province best represents their interests, tied with Ottawa as well as their municipality — while 26 per cent of Manitoba respondents said no level of government represents them well.
In that same time, regional dissatisfaction with Ottawa seems to have peaked.
In 2019, 51 per cent of Prairie residents agreed “Western Canada gets so few benefits that it may as well go it on its own,” the highest proportion since Environics starting asking it every year in 1987.
That number has since dropped to 42 per cent.
Since that peak, the Trudeau Liberals have been re-elected twice with scant representation in the Prairies, and no clear plan for their announced transition from fossil fuel employment to green jobs.
Environics sees the region shifting from a well-established sense of alienation from Ottawa, toward an ambivalence about how the Prairies are governed in general, on numerous topics.
For the pandemic itself, Manitobans lost faith in how the province handled COVID-19 between early 2022 and just a year prior.
The percentage of Manitobans saying they most trusted their province to handle the pandemic dropped from 21 to 13 in that time, yet there was almost no change in that time in how Manitobans assessed Ottawa’s handling of COVID-19.
Beyond the pandemic, Manitobans are three times more likely to trust Ottawa than their province to address climate change.
A meagre eight per cent of Manitoba respondents say they trust the province to make the right decisions on climate, compared to 31 per cent having faith in Ottawa, 23 having equal faith in both, and 28 per cent trusting neither government.
On health care in general, not just COVID-19, a plurality of Manitobans, 29 per cent, trust neither level of government to manage health services, compared with 22 per cent placing their faith in the province, and 21 per cent saying Ottawa does a better job.
However, trust in how provinces handle economic growth and jobs has remained steady since 2019, across the Prairies.
» Winnipeg Free Press