Almost one in four Canadians were directly affected by extreme weather events over the past year, a new poll suggests.
The Leger poll — released as Canada copes with its second-worst wildfire season on record — says 23 per cent of Canadians who responded said they were personally affected by extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, fires and tornadoes over the last 12 months.
Among those who said they had felt the impacts of extreme weather, almost two-thirds reported being forced to stay indoors because of air quality concerns, while 39 per cent reported suffering emotional stress.
Twenty-seven per cent of those who reported experiencing extreme weather said they had to postpone travel plans, while one-fifth said they suffered property damage.
Leger's latest poll — which was conducted online and can't be assigned a margin of error — surveyed 1,529 Canadians between June 13 and June 15.
More than 2,000 fires have already been documented in Canada this year, burning almost 40,000 square kilometres of land. About three-quarters of the total area burned is in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The percentage of Canadians saying they were affected by extreme weather has dropped from the 35 per cent Leger reported when it asked the same question in August 2024 — a year after Canada's worst wildfire season.
That poll would have captured the months that saw wildfires burning in almost every province, and thick smoke blanketing cities and towns all across Canada for days and, even weeks, at a time.
The difference in timing between the two polls may have influenced some of the results, which also suggested Canadians perceived fewer episodes of extreme heat, flooding and heavy rainfall.
"What it tells me is that what's currently being experienced by Canadians really drives how they feel about what's happening more frequently and less frequently in terms of extreme weather," said Andrew Enns, executive vice president at Leger.
"So it just kind of reminds us that the here and now really has an impact on how people perceive the frequency of extreme weather, and maybe associating that to climate change."
Modelling by Environment and Climate Change Canada suggests temperatures will be about a degree or two above normal across the country through August.
Leger's poll suggests nearly two-thirds of Canadians — and 74 per cent of respondents in B.C. — are concerned about hot summers and heat waves. Natural Resources Canada is forecasting an extreme fire risk in the southern part of British Columbia in July.
The number of Canadians concerned about a hot summer has dropped since the August 2024 survey, which reported 70 per cent of respondents were worried about summer heat.
Enns said his firm conducted its latest poll before the start of summer to get a baseline to study how recent events affect Canadians' perception of climate.
"And then we can have this conversation and really say, 'OK, yeah, there is a timing impact' and take that into account when we look at these things," Enns said, adding the firm is planning another survey at the end of the summer.
The percentage of Canadians who said climate change worries them dropped to 59 per cent from the 63 per cent reported in the August 2024 survey, while exactly half of Canadians polled said there is still time to reverse the consequences of climate change — an increase of two percentage points since August 2024.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
