Moving toward a government trust ecosystem in Canada

Abstract

Trust in government encompasses various relationships, including citizens’ confidence in government, elected and unelected officials’ confidence in each other, and governments’ trust in non-government organizations. In many democracies, including Canada, these relationships have been discussed to varying degrees, with the least attention given to government and public sector trust of non-government organizations and public service trust of politicians. This study marks the first attempt to empirically study and compare all these relationships, sketching what we refer to as the “government trust ecosystem.” This research draws on data from surveys conducted among the public, politicians, and public servants in Canada to evaluate their levels of trust in different actors and institutions involved in public governance. The findings reveal high levels of public confidence in government, but lower levels of government confidence in non-government organizations, particularly the media and interest groups. A lack of government trust in these non-government organizations, which play a key role in democracy, points to potential problems for democratic governance in Canada and raises warning for other democracies.