Quebecers Don't Have Much Hope Life Will Get Back To Normal Anytime Soon, Poll Shows

With Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout facing criticism, only 25% of Quebecers think the pandemic will be over a year from now, according to a new survey from the Association for Canadian Studies.

The Leger poll of 1,559 Canadians, conducted from January 29 to 31, found over half of Quebecers (52%) think it will be two years before things get back to normal. Meanwhile, 17% say it’ll take five years or more.

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One in two Quebecers now think it will be two years before things return to something closer to life before
COVID-19.

Jack Jedwab, Association for Canadian Studies President

The new findings stand in contrast with earlier surveys conducted before the winter holiday, "when the vast majority of Quebecers seemed optimistic about 2021 owing to positive forecasts about the vaccine roll out," according to Association for Canadian Studies President Jack Jedwab.

"Yet earlier projections of a perceived return to relative normalcy by the middle of 2021 now seem less likely to correspond to the public’s forecast."

Francophones are more optimistic than non-francophones.

Just 15% of non-francophones said things would "return to something closer to life before COVID-19" in a year, compared to 28% of francophones.

And Quebecers as a whole are more pessimistic about the pandemic than other Canadians.

Sixty-two percent of Quebecers said they were "upset" they "don’t know when the COVID-19 crisis will end" compared to 47% of people in Atlantic Canada and 48% of people from the Prairie provinces, according to a January 15 to 17 survey.