The long running myth that “all Canadians are friendly and happy” has been debunked.
A new Misery Index, in a report by MacDonald-Laurier Institute, has measured how 15 different countries have handled the pandemic.
Although the pandemic has been a global issue, where all have suffered physically and mentally, it appears that Canadians have struggled considerably in comparison to others. We ranked lower than countries such as the US (we know, shocker) and New Zealand, both of which Canada normally outranks in such studies.
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Canada was ranked 11 out of 15 countries analyzed. Which may come as a surprise, as we have also been known to be amongst happiest of countries in the world. So this is a stark contrast.
What’s Making Canada Miserable?
According to the report, “Relative to its peers, Canada gets a ‘C’ in terms of its overall performance.” How Canada compared to other developed countries as far as misery is attributed to the pandemic.
The three factors, or misery indexes looked at included:
- Disease misery – caused by the virus itself
- Reponse misery – the government’s response to the virus
- Economic misery – the economic impact of the virus
Factors reviewed to rank each of the above included: COVID-19 cases, deaths, hospitalizations and ICU admissions per million residents, testing and vaccination rates, stringency of lockdown measures, unemployement rates and changes in GDP and public borrowing.
The area in which Canada did awful was the response misery. In fact, in this index alone Canada ranked 14/15. Economically, we sat at 13/15. The actual disease misery we sat at the middle at 6/15.
The report essentially outlines that while we were not the most miserable about the virus itself, the overall response to it is what shot us in the foot.
Our Response Misery Index
The report says that Canada’s vaccine rollout plan has been “embarrassing” and “lags significantly on vaccinations.” The report also says that while the lockdowns worked, they were amongst some of the most stringent, which played a factor in the economic misery we are facing.
Unemployment outcomes have been quite poor and that plays into many being kept out of work due to lockdowns and translating to a decline in mental health.
Hopefully, Canadians can bounce back. As vaccinations do roll out and things come back to some sense of normalcy, perhaps we can redeem ourselves and get back to being the stereotypical friendly people of the North.
Let’s hope.
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