Populism and Trust in the Public Service in Canada

Abstract

Denigrating public servants has been a key feature of populists movements that seek to prioritize the individual and “common people” over “establishment elites”. In Canada, mainstream conservative party leaders claim “Canada is broken” and openly advocate for “getting rid of the gatekeepers,” for example, while right-wing populists often promote the dangers of the “deep state.” Despite these developments, we do not know whether and how populist attitudes relate to citizens' trust in the public service. We use public opinion data from a nationwide survey to determine that populism exerts an independent effect on public trust in the bureaucracy beyond democratic satisfaction and efficacy. Our findings suggest that, even when controlling for those other factors, populist attitudes remain the strongest determinants of public trust in public servants. This leads us to an important discussion of the impact of populism on the stability, legitimacy, and performance of the public service, particularly as populist leaders assume positions of power and control over the bureaucracy.