Montreal – The economy is weak, the price of oil has collapsed, and the loonie is doing a swan dive, but Canadians are remarkably happy with the performance of the federal government and the general direction of the country, according to a new survey conducted by Nanos Research for Policy Options magazine.

A large majority (60%) rated the performance of the new Liberal government good or very good. That’s a record in the nine years the annual survey has been conducted. The previous high came after the Conservative victory in 2011, but that peak was only 40% positive.

More surprisingly given present economic woes, Canadians are almost as bullish on the general direction of the country. Sixty-three percent said Canada “is moving in the right direction” – only a hair below the 66% who said the same in 2007, when the economy was booming.

The most dramatic change recorded by the survey involves federal-provincial relations, which slightly more than half of Canadians felt had improved – a positive assessment more than double the highest response since 2007.

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Policy Options, Canada’s leading policy magazine, is published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). The IRPP is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal.

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Media contact: Shirley Cardenas tel. 514-594-6877 scardenas@nullirpp.org