Donald Trump has infuriated Canadians, a new ‘rage index’ poll shows. Here’s what else made everyone angry

Pollara’s year-end poll looked at Canadians’ outrage and the stories that drove their anger. The poll was conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 13 through an online survey of 1,506 Canadians over the age of 18. The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 per cent and was weighted to be representative of the general Canadian population. Because the survey was based on “non-probability sampling,” it does not have a margin of error, but a similarly conducted probability sample would have a margin of error of 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

The polling firm’s “rage index” for 2024 hit a record high since it started tracking Canadians’ fury in August 2022. That finding comes despite interest rate cuts and economic indications that Canadians are doing better than years prior, said Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer of Pollara, explained.

Instead, Canadians actively searched out news that made them angry — especially when it came to the incoming U.S. president.

What stories outraged Canadians?

“The story of 2024 is the Donald Trump story,” Arnold said.

President-elect Donald Trump set Canadians off, with 31 per cent of those polled saying his election win in November was the news story that caused them the most outrage, Pollara found. That was followed by Trump’s threat of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, which 15 per cent of Canadians put at the top of their most irritating stories of the year. 

And the U.S. presidential election was the most followed news story in 2024, with 86 per cent of Canadians saying they were paying attention to the election coverage and 36 per cent actively searching for election news. That was followed by Trump’s tariff announcement, which drew the attention of more than three quarters of those surveyed.

But the focus on Trump wasn’t purely election based — a series of events kept him top of mind for Canadians. It started early on, with his 34 felony convictions in May, an assassination attempt in September, his election in November and the tariff threat in December. Wave after wave of Trump in the news cycle meant that Canadians were constantly paying attention, with those four events ranking top 10 in the most followed news stories among those surveyed by Pollara. And that’s all without mentioning Trump’s joking threats to make Canada the 51st state.

“I don’t think that suggests (Canadians) will feel much better in 2025, because I don’t think Trump will leave the public spotlight by any means,” Arnold said.

The news that captivated Canadians

Trump didn’t get all the attention.

Across the country, Canadians polled by Pollara said they followed stories on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine, the forest fires in Jasper, changes to the capital gains tax, Kate Middleton’s battle with cancer and Taylor Swift’s Canadian Eras Tour shows.

Those stories, however, had major age gaps in story interest: older groups (above 50 years old) followed the harder news stories, like the war in Ukraine, Trump’s tariff threats and Trump’s felony convictions more than their younger counterparts. Meanwhile, those under age 50 were tuned in to stories like the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud, Australian break-dancer Raygun at the Olympics and the solar eclipse more so than their elders.

“For young people, these are things that they’re seeing on social media a lot, things that go viral on TikTok,” Arnold explained, “Whereas if you look at older Canadians, you see things that get covered in a nightly newscast.”

But it wasn’t all outrage. Pollara found that Canadians polled were made happiest by stories around the Bank of Canada’s rate cut, the solar eclipse that covered parts of the country and Summer McIntosh’s multiple gold medals at the Paris Olympics.

Still, some news magnets, like Trump, are unavoidable no matter where you get your news.

“You can escape news about Drake if you try to,” Arnold added. “But it’s hard to escape news about Donald Trump.”

“Canadians seem to be paying more attention to what was going on outside of our country in 2024 for than what’s going on inside,” Arnold said, citing the big proportion of those surveyed that paid attention to pop culture and politics outside of Canada.

“But, we’ll see. That may change in 2025.”