MONTREAL –
A new study by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) shows that people who identify as a minority seen in Canada are likely to know someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

“Perceptions about the effects of viruses are influenced by the extent to which we know someone with a virus,” wrote ACS President Jack Jedwab. “Knowing ‘someone else’ might for some people reinforce the idea that it happens to other people and not you.”

Thirty-one percent of the minority seen said they knew someone who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to 23.6 percent of respondents identified as Caucasian.

CANADA

Across the country, the percentage of Canadians who reported personally knew someone who was diagnosed with the virus increased sixfold in two months.

On March 23, four percent of Canadians who participated in the Leger poll confirmed that they knew someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19, while the number increased to 24 percent on May 19.

Respondents born outside of Canada and immigrants who have been in the country for 21 years or more are the most unlikely group to know someone who has been diagnosed with the virus.

Only 16.4 percent of immigrants have been in Canada for 21 years or more and 24.1 percent of respondents born outside of Canada said that they knew someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19. On the other hand, participants who had settled in Canada between 11 and 20 years were the most likely to answer that they knew someone with a diagnosis (37.2 percent).

MONTREAL

With Montreal being the center of a pandemic in Canada, respondents from the city were not surprised to answer that they knew someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19 (43 percent).

“Montreal is far and is one of the highest in North America in terms of diagnosis to report getting to know someone,” Jedwab told CTV News. “A lot of this has to do with people working on the front lines. Frontline workers are people who disproportionately report having a virus, and this is not only common in Montreal. You see it in the United States too. “

In the U.S., this study found that 48.8 percent of Hispanics and 37.3 percent of African-American respondents said they knew someone diagnosed with COVID-19 compared with 28.3 Caucasians.

Participants in the poll were 1,513 Canadians and 1,001 Americans aged 18 or over randomly recruited.

The survey took place from 15 May to 17 May 2020.

MONTREAL –
A study by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) shows that Americans trust Canadians more than they trust themselves.

According to the survey, 72.5 percent of Americans trust Canadians, compared to 70 percent who trust other Americans.

On the other hand, 88 percent of Canadians trust their citizens, but only 34 percent believe in Americans.

Twenty-one percent of Canadians don’t trust Americans at all, while only 7.2 percent of Americans feel that way about their northern neighbors.

According to Jack Jedwab, President and CEO of ACS, the approach of the US and the Canadian government to the COVID-19 pandemic greatly influenced respondents’ confidence in these countries.

“There is great confidence when you compare answers from April with answers before the pandemic from November,” Jedwab told CTV News.

More Americans say they trust Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (51 percent) than President Donald Trump (38 percent). While 56 percent of Canadians say they trust Trudeau, only 12 percent say the same thing about Trump.

1,515 Canadians and 1,012 Americans aged 18 or over were randomly recruited for the survey, using the Leger Opinion online panel (LEO).

The survey takes place from 28 November to 30 November 2019 and from 24 April to 26 April 2020.

DISEBUST QUEBEC

Confidence in Americans among Quebec people fell from 54 percent to 17 percent between November 2019 and April 2020, the lowest percentage of all provinces.

Jedwab suspects that because Quebec is most affected by COVID-19, respondents are more sensitive to American behavior during a health crisis.

“The perception that Americans do not follow guidelines in a way that follows Canadians, I think, has a profound impact on how Canadians view Americans,” Jack Jedwab, President and CEO of ACS, told CTV News. “How Donald Trump does himself has also significantly reduced trust.”