Compared with other government influencers, our survey of Canadians reveals that foreign influence ranks well down the list. In our most recent edition of the Public Monitor we explore Canadians’ views on the foreign influence debate.
The key highlights in this release include:
- Foreign influence is seen as relatively minor compared with other influencers.
- Conservative supporters are much more concerned about the issue than other voting blocks.
- Our report also shows that the U.S. is seen as the biggest foreign influencer.
A more detailed presentation is in the report, including data tables.
In the eyes of the Canadian public, foreign influence on government ranks well behind business interests.
Almost two thirds think that large corporations have a strong influence on Canadian government officials and politicians.
- Just half as many see foreign governments as having a comparable level of influence. Foreign influence also ranks behind the two additional business interest groups.
Conservative supporters constitute the only population subgroup in which a majority say that foreign influence is strong.
For supporters of other political parties, foreign influence on government is not particularly strong.
Discussion
A good deal of media and political attention has been focused over the past several years on foreign influence in Canadian politics. Although this issue has been spearheaded by the Conservative party and is not particularly concerning to most Canadians, within its first year in office the Liberal government has established an Office of the Commissioner on Foreign Influence.
For most Canadians, the influence of foreign actors is relatively minor compared against the influence big business exerts over government. A solid majority of all political stripes think so. Meanwhile, the public is seen as having little influence on our government officials and politicians. Perhaps so-called voter apathy is not rooted in apathy.
Methodology
The Public Monitor is powered by the Modalis Public Opinion Panel – one of Canada’s only fully probability-based research panels.
The survey was conducted online using both email and SMS invitations/reminders, and completed via desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. A total of 1,646 responses were gathered from Canadian adults. As Modalis is 100% recruited using RDD probability-based telephone sampling, it is statistically valid to calculate the margin of error – it is plus or minus 2.4% at a 95% confidence interval. Sample matters.
The survey was conducted from August 10 to 23, 2026. We run surveys at the optimal timeframe for online surveys (~ two weeks) to mitigate the early response bias of quick turnaround surveys.
The data have been weighted by age, gender, region and education using the latest Census population data from Statistics Canada.
The Public Monitor
The Public Monitor is a monthly omnibus survey ideally suited for discerning clients who need a cost-effective solution to their public opinion research needs without compromising quality.
The Monitor is powered by the Modalis Public Opinion Panel – one of Canada’s only fully probability-based research panels. There is no need to compromise data quality when using an omnibus.
