New polling showed jobs and growth outpacing housing as a national concern
Housing and mortgage affordability, long at the centre of Canadian political debate, appeared to have slipped in voters’ minds at the end of 2025 as concern over jobs and the broader economy surged to the top of the national agenda, according to new Nanos Research tracking.
In the latest four‑week rolling survey ending December 26, roughly one in five respondents identified jobs and the economy as their most important national issue, more than double the proportion who pointed to Trump/US relations.
By contrast, housing and the cost of housing ranked in the lower tier of unprompted concerns, behind inflation, health care, immigration, the environment and government debt.
“Canadians are twice as likely to say that jobs/the economy are their top issue of concern compared to Trump/US relations,” Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research, said.
“Race between the Liberals and Conservatives remains close. Carney ahead of Poilievre by 21 points on the preferred PM tracking.”
The weekly Nanos survey, which had a sample of 1,054 Canadians aged 18 and over for the period ending December 26, was conducted by telephone using a dual landline and cell‑phone frame and a four‑week rolling average.
Previous year‑end commentary from Nanos pointed to the same hierarchy of concerns. “Just over one in five respondents to the poll published this week said jobs and the economy were the most important national issues — more than double the 10 per cent who listed relations with the United States and President Donald Trump as their top priority,” the pollster reported.
Inflation, health care and immigration “rounded out the top five concerns for Canadians.”
Nanos added that consumers had been wary about their own finances. They were in an “anxious holding pattern” heading into the new year, he said. “It’s too early to tell. But I think right now, at least, it’s a bit of a wait-and-see for many Canadians,” Nanos said.
For the mortgage and housing industry, when voters named “jobs/economy” and inflation far ahead of “housing/cost of housing,” it suggested that many Canadians now saw their mortgage burden and rent pressures as part of a broader economic squeeze rather than a stand‑alone political issue.
That shift mattered for lenders and brokers. If public debate in 2026 revolved around growth, wages and trade uncertainty, policy responses on rates, taxation and capital investment, rather than direct housing interventions, could shape the mortgage landscape.
Housing might not have sat at the top of the poll, but it remained tightly bound to the economic anxiety driving it.
A CMHC and Statistics Canada housing survey found that 22.6% of households said they “often or sometimes” faced financial challenges due to rising rent or mortgage payments, nearly double the share in 2018.
Another survey revealed that nearly nine in 10 Canadians expressed concern about housing affordability and security, with just over half worried about keeping up with mortgage or rent payments.
A separate Nanos‑based survey reported that many Canadians believed real estate was overpriced and that a majority would not object if prices fell, with priorities split between more supply, more subsidized housing and lower mortgage rates.
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