SPECIAL SURVEY: Numbers Up North

What do Americans and Canadians really think of one another? What do they make of their governments and of each other’s? Whom would they vote for in each other’s elections? Do they share concerns about key challenges like, say, artificial intelligence, and what do they think about Israel’s war in Gaza?

Ahead of our landmark US-Canada Summit earlier this week, we teamed up with the Montréal-based pollster Data Sciences to find out. Their team asked 2,340 folks on both sides of the border what they really think. Here’s a selection of key findings, by the numbers.

68: What’s the most important aspect of US-Canada ties? 68% of Americans and Canadians say it’s the economy and trade. Security and defense ties came in a close second, but fewer than half thought culture or personal ties were very important. We did not ask about hockey.

70: Things aren’t going great … Huge majorities on both sides of the border are heading into their upcoming elections – in November for the US and before October 2025 in Canada – with negative sentiments. A whopping 70% of both Canadians and Americans are “frustrated” with their federal governments.

26: Still, Canadians are keener to kick out their current government than Americans. Just 26% of Canucks would vote for the incumbent Liberals, whereas Americans are more split – 47% would vote for Trump and 45% would vote for Biden.

21: Even good-natured Canada isn’t safe from America’s partisan splits. There is a 21-point difference between the percentage of Biden voters who see Canada as a “partner” (82%) and the share of Trump voters who say the same (61%). But who, we wonder, are the 2-3% of both candidates’ voters who view Canada as an outright “enemy”? What did Canada do to hurt you?

72: The robots are coming, and 72% of Americans and Canadians are somewhat or very concerned about the rise of artificial intelligence, with almost half worried that a robot or machine could do some or most of their jobs.

25: Canadians are more pro-Palestinian than Americans. Asked whom they sympathize more with, 25% of Canadians said the Palestinians against just 16% who listed the Israelis. South of the border, the views were almost exactly flipped, with 16% of Americans saying they felt more for the Palestinians, while 29% said the Israelis.