More than half of Canadians say their personal finances are worse today than in 2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected on a promise to help the middle class and those aspiring to join it. 

A surge of inflation, and the interest-rate hikes meant to quell it, have squeezed heavily indebted Canadians, who also said the high cost of living is the most important issue affecting how they intend to vote.

Some 53 per cent said their personal finances are worse now than eight years ago, according to the poll conducted by Nanos Research for Bloomberg News, while 24 per cent said they were better off and 21 per cent said there had been no change.

Those 35 to 54 years old were most likely to feel the financial blues — 61 per cent said they’re now worse off.

The poll helps illustrate why Trudeau’s government is ending the year with low ratings. “When the economy is flat and people worry about paying the bills they get grumpy and look to punish the incumbent government,” said Nik Nanos, the polling firm’s chief data scientist. “If you are struggling to pay for housing or the groceries, you might think, ‘What do I have to lose with a change in government?’”

If an election were held today, some 45 per cent of Canadians said the cost of living – including housing, groceries and energy bills – would be the most important matter influencing their vote. The environment, at 14 per cent, and health care, at 12 per cent, are next on the list.

Nanos polled 1,069 Canadians by telephone and online between Nov. 30 and Dec. 2. The margin of error is 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Inflation is clearly easing in Canada. It held steady at a 3.1 per cent annual pace in November, down from 8.1 per cent in June 2022. While that’s progress, it’s cold comfort for some Canadian households, who’ve faced one of the most rapid erosions in purchasing power in generations.

The consumer price index in Canada is 10 per cent higher than it would have been had inflation continued to rise at its pre-pandemic pace, according to Bloomberg calculations. Shelter and food inflation are both nearly 14 per cent higher.

From the time the Bank of Canada adopted inflation targeting in the early 1990s until 2020, prices were rising at about a 1.8 per cent annual clip.

According to the central bank, housing hasn’t been this unaffordable in Canada since the early 1980s.

Though an election isn’t expected until 2025, Trudeau’s chief rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, has launched campaign-style ads blaming the prime minister for the price of housing, food and energy. “After eight years, Justin Trudeau is not worth the cost,” Poilievre often repeats. Most polls put the Tories about 10 points ahead, despite a flurry of affordability announcements from Trudeau’s Liberals — including a $4-billion fund for cities to build housing and competition-law changes aimed at lowering grocery prices.

“The Conservative party keeps voting against funding for housing,” Trudeau said Thursday in Toronto, where he announced $471 million to speed up homebuilding. “If it were up to them, we would not be here today. But our Liberal approach is to work together with municipalities. Our approach is to invest in people. It’s to invest in the future.”

Trudeau isn’t alone in facing an angry electorate fed up with the loss of purchasing power. Many U.S. voters don’t seem to be buying President Joe Biden’s economic message, either, despite the pace of price increases slowing since last year.

“Inflation kills governments,” said Mike Moffatt, senior policy director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and a former economic adviser to Trudeau from 2013 to 2015.

Moffatt pointed out in an interview that U.S. President Jimmy Carter lost his bid for a second term in a landslide in 1980 as the Federal Reserve aggressively hiked interest rates to tame inflation. Amid the recent run-up in prices, voters in Australia and New Zealand turfed out their incumbent governments, and the governing U.K. Conservatives are also polling poorly.

“There is this discontent. People see costs going up and up and up and don’t necessarily see their paychecks going up,” he said. “It’s going to be a very difficult thing for the federal government to deal with because so many of these factors are global in nature.”