Poll: Canadian Patriotism Was Fading. Then Trump Came Back.

OTTAWA — As they celebrate their national day, Canadians feel a renewed sense of national pride — a reversal of a stubborn trend that dates back at least 40 years.

All it took was an unpredictable and aggressive next-door neighbor whose sovereignty threats and trade war left a lasting mark.

A new POLITICO Poll of six countries reveals in Canada a country rethinking its place on the global stage, reconsidering its relationship with Americans and bucking global patriotism trends.

As Europeans eye flag-waving with skepticism, prideful Canadians are wrapping themselves in the Maple Leaf.

In question after question, Canadians report far greater levels of national pride and patriotism than respondents in the U.K., France, Germany and Spain. Canadians were even more likely than Americans to want young kids to sing the national anthem at school.

Jean Chrétien, an outspoken former prime minister, has repeatedly joked about nominating Donald Trump for the Order of Canada for uniting so many people north of the border.

Non-Canadians are eligible for the country’s highest civilian honor if they have “brought benefit or honour to” Canada.

While Canada’s honors system is unlikely to induct the president, Chrétien’s joke points to an apparent reversal of a decades-long trend. For years, Canadians were increasingly blasé about their national identity. Pride had shrunk to record lows.

True patriot love, revived

There’s no mistaking the new trend.

“For progressive leaders around the world, Canada may show that there is a way to capture a message of national pride that does not alienate key voters,” said Seb Wride, principal at Public First, which conducted the survey. “But it also shows the challenge in doing so, if what it takes is a geographical neighbor dramatically turning up the temperature as much as Canadians feel Trump has.”

What inspires those warm and fuzzies?

Forty-six percent credited values and way of life. Forty-two percent pointed to the country’s natural landscape. Thirty-eight percent mentioned the people.

Another 37 percent named the country’s healthcare, though the patchwork of overtaxed provincial systems wasn’t universally boastworthy: 23 percent consider healthcare a source of shame, the most of any option presented by the pollster.

The economy and “our leaders” were nearly as shameful, trailing at 22 percent.

This newfound pride is a stark departure from an increasing detachment from the country that traces to at least the 1980s.

The negative sentiment reached its apparent nadir during the final month of 2024, just as Trump was ratcheting up his “51st state” rhetoric and making economic threats.

At the time, the Angus Reid Institute found only 34 percent of respondents were “very proud” to be Canadian. In 1985: 78 percent, according to an Environics survey at the time. ARI measured an almost immediate bump in early 2025, when the “very proud” measure jumped to 44 percent. It has since dropped several points in that pollster’s analysis.

Sorry. Not sorry.

Canada’s take on its own history may also be evolving.

Five years ago, Canadians entered a summertime reckoning about the country’s historic treatment of Indigenous people. A series of shocking announcements about potential child remains found near former residential schools prompted deep reflection nationwide.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered that the Canadian flag flown atop the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill be flown at half-mast for six months that year. Some Canada Day celebrations, already muted due to the Covid pandemic, were canceled. Many revelers who typically donned red clothing, covered themselves in red face paint or draped themselves in flags opted instead for an orange motif — a color meant to honor children who suffered in the residential school system.

Now, The POLITICO Poll reveals a new Canadian approach to history: Acknowledge and apologize for sins, but stop atoning.

Sixty-one percent support government apologies for historical wrongs. But 45 percent said Canada has apologized enough, compared to 29 percent who wanted to hear more.

A slim majority (52 percent) said Canada should take pride in its history.

Only 9 percent said the country should feel ashamed of its past.

Trump can only unite Canada so much

For all their newfound pride, Canadians aren’t claiming to inhabit utopia.

A majority of the country told our pollster the country is divided. Thirty-nine percent said it’s the worst they can remember, while 27 percent can remember larger rifts. Only about one in four (24 percent) sees unity in the country.

And for all of Trump’s apparent work in invigorating northern pride, the country is split on his influence on a long Canadian tradition of bickering between provinces.

Forty-three percent say the president’s commentary has brought provinces closer together. There is evidence of that: premiers have axed more interprovincial trade barriers than anybody can remember in a bid to fortify themselves against Trump’s tariffs.

But 36 percent see Trump as driving a wedge between provinces, and there’s evidence there, too: squabbles over resource development, spats over remaining trade barriers that protect regional industries and disagreements about how to counter Trump.

Few of those battles are new in Canada, but the U.S. president is exposing the limits of national cooperation in the face of a persistent foreign threat.