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A new poll finds that most Canadians are proud of their home and native land, but our sense of national pride is less than it was a few years ago.

Polling company Léger surveyed 1,607 people last weekend, asking them what they thought about being Canadian in the run-up to Canada Day. The company asked a group of 1,003 Americans a similar question ahead of July 4.

The results show that the vast majority of us — 76 percent — would consider ourselves proud Canadians.

But 45% of respondents said they felt less proud than they did five years ago in 2019. Léger said that figure was up 16 percentage points from 2021, when they were asked the same question.

Respondents were asked to choose from a list the things that made them most proud of being Canadian. The country’s natural beauty tops the rankings, followed by universal healthcare, freedom and equality, a peaceful and secure society, and multiculturalism.

Only one in five people say their fellow Canadians make them proud.

The long wait lists, shortages of family doctors and overcrowded emergency rooms that have made headlines across the country in recent years have damaged our collective pride in health care.

The state of the health care system topped respondents’ list of concerns, behind economic inequality and poverty as the things that made people least proud to be Canadian.

Third on this list: the current federal government.

Most people who chose Trudeau’s Liberal Party as their top concern also said they were supporters of the federal Conservative Party, according to the poll.

In fact, Conservative voters are more likely to say they are less proud to be Canadian than they were five years ago, with 65 per cent agreeing with that statement, compared to just 26 per cent of Liberal voters, 41 per cent of NDP supporters and 36 per cent who support the Bloc Québécois.

While 94 percent of people who said they voted for the Liberal Party also said they were proud to be Canadian, a figure that fell to 88 percent among NDP voters, 68 percent among Conservative voters and 51 percent among voters who supported the Bloc. .

But the proudest regions are the Conservative heartlands of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where more than 80 per cent say they are proud to be Canadian.

Quebecers are the most likely to say that their level of pride has not changed in five years, and the most likely to say that they are not proud to be Canadian.

Only 22 per cent of Quebec respondents said they planned to celebrate Canada Day, the lowest number in the country. Quebec recently celebrated Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, also known as the Fête nationale, on June 24.

Less than half of those surveyed planned to celebrate July 1.

Overall, only seven percent of respondents said they were prouder than in 2019, while 45 percent said things had not changed.

Compare that to our neighbors south of the border, where about one in five respondents say they are prouder to be American than they were five years ago. 45 percent said their feelings have not changed, and 35 percent said their feelings of pride have diminished.

Half of American respondents said they felt their home country was one of the best places in the world to live, compared to 41 percent of Canadians.

A quarter of Canadian respondents said they felt Canada had a lot of work to do to maintain its reputation as the best country in the world, while only five percent of Americans said the same about the United States. In contrast, 27 percent said they believed the United States had problems to overcome but had a bright future. Only eight percent of Canadian respondents reported similar feelings about Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2024.