The most recent survey from Modalis Public Opinion by Modus Research finds a very strong majority of Canadians agree that companies are using inflation as an excuse to gouge them. This sentiment is shared among Canadians across all income groups.
Key findings in this release:
- A vast majority of Canadians feel that companies are using inflation as an excuse to gouge them
- Inflation is a very urgent topic for governments in Canada to address
- Many Canadians hold governments responsible for inflation
Canadians say companies are gouging them under the guise of inflation.
While there has been widespread denial that companies are gouging under the guise of inflation, the debate is largely settled for Canadians.
Remarkably, this is generally consistent across income groups, with strong majorities agreeing. Nearly three-quarters of even the highest earners agree that they are being overcharged for products.
Canadians also see this as an urgent issue to be addressed by governments.
Virtually all Canadians – 95% – consider inflation to be at least a somewhat urgent issue to be addressed by governments, making it the most urgent issue today. Further, the top three concerns here are inflation-related.
Across all income levels, at least half of all Canadians believe that governments must act very urgently to address inflation.
Almost half of Canadians think inflation is within the government's control.
Nearly half of all Canadians believe that the current episode of inflation is within the control of Canadian policy makers, with less than a third saying that it is outside of their control.
While many Canadians recognize global factors affect inflation, they are also unwilling to let policy makers off the hook for increasing prices in the country.
Discussion
While Bank of Canada researchers contend that profits did not cause inflation, the CBC reports that corporate profiteering could help fuel inflation. Canadians are siding heavily with the latter, no doubt influenced by reports of record profits for major corporations.
On inflation itself, Canadians think governments need to step in and do more to address it, and will not let policy makers off the hook just because inflation is a matter of the global economy. Finally, Canadians consider inflation to be a deeply urgent issue for governments to address. This speaks to a growing economic anxiety among Canadians at all income levels, to be covered in a future release.
Methodology
The survey was conducted from August 1 to 8 using the Modalis Public Opinion panel – 100% recruited using random probability telephone sampling. Because the panel is built entirely using random probability sampling, it is valid to cite the margin of error for this survey. The survey is based on a representative sample of 1,618 Canadian adults and has a margin of error of +/- 2.4% points, 95 times out of 100. The survey data is weighted by age, gender, and region according to the latest Statistics Canada census.
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