Good afternoon! So, 2025 is delivering many headlines, and we still have the inauguration of Donald Trump, the federal Liberal leadership race, and the federal election to go. And 2025 is only nine days old.

TL;DR:

• Hard Pass on the 51st State Idea
• Canada Has Its Problems, But We Still Want To Be Independent
• Do Canadians Want To Join the U.S., Or Are They Just Cheering Trump?
• Should We Get Tough on the Trump Tariff Threat: Canadians Say Yes.

But I've got you good people covered. My eyebrows went up when I first saw Donald Trump talking about making Canada the 51st State and my instinct was to poll this to see what Canadians thought about it.

I had asked some questions about Canada-U.S. relations in the survey that I did on January 6th.

Thanks to Donald Trump stating in a press conference that he would like to make Canada the 51st State two days ago (and sending Canadian media and some politicians into a headspin), these findings have gained some currency again. So, let's look at the results, shall we?

Becoming the 51st State? No Thanks, We Are Good

When asked whether they would like to see Canada become the 51st state, 80% said no, 16% said yes, and 4% said that they were not sure.

I've been doing public opinion research for over ten years, and I rarely get people saying they are opposed (or in favour) to something at that level.

Click here to read the report with tables

This is where my inner Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank chimes in: "The market has spoken! I'm Mr. Wonderful, I'm going to help you! This is a terrible idea, and when you get home, take this idea out in the field, shoot it, and put it out of its misery! I forbid you to work on this idea any longer!"

Now, some will compare these results to the findings of other pollsters and note that this is the highest level of support for the 51st State found so far. Well, two points about that. Leger found support for the 51st state to be 13% in December. We have support at 16%.

Given the margins of error between the two surveys and the fact that we have two very different methodologies, the results are roughly the same.

Some more context. Leger and Pallas are telling you both the same thing. Canadians opposed to the 51st state outnumber those in favour of the idea by eight-to-one.

So when someone on Twitter (you can't make me call it X) says that support for the 51st state has increased 3% in a month, please ignore them. That's not how polling works.

Despite It All, We Still Want To Be Canadian

I couldn't stop with this question because American annexation of Canada can take a few different forms besides statehood. Canada could become a territory of the United States with no votes in the electoral college.

So we asked if people agreed with this statement; "No matter how bad things might get in Canada, I still prefer that Canada remain a sovereign and independent country than becoming a part of the United States."

66% of Canadians agreed with the statement, with 59% strongly agreeing. 14% strongly disagreed, with 7% somewhat agreeing.

So this question goes beyond asking whether we want to become the 51st state. We wanted to know if people believed in an independent and sovereign Canada, warts and all.

Heaven knows that we have heard enough about Canada's problems, and I could write a book about the erosion - or total inability to develop - a uniquely Canadian identity (and the Canadian right is as responsible for this failure as the left, in my opinion).

But are we, as a country, getting at least something right? Does the possibility of Canada make sense, or is the idea of Canada worth working on, or - to use even braver language - worth fighting for?

This is the question that I wanted to answer and it's clear: We prefer a flawed Canada to no Canada at all.

Trump: The Elephant-Sized Mynah Bird In The Room

But...I like my caveats. And here they come.

Men are twice as likely to want Canada to be the 51st state than women, and support for the 51st state increases as respondents get younger.

Support for the 51st state is almost two times higher among Conservative voters than the Canadian population. Conservatives are significantly less likely to strongly agree with the statement that Canada should remain independent and sovereign despite its flaws.

Why? The easy answer is that the Canadian progressive movement, especially since Justin Trudeau has been Prime Minister, has been associated with Canada for so long that conservatives now disapprove of an independent Canada because Trudeau has been leading it for so long.

My hunch is that the theory is false. If that were true, Conservative support for the 51st state would be much higher, as should disagreement with the idea that Canada should remain independent.

We ask questions like this all the time: "The government is planning to do x, Do you agree with x?" The results are generally the same. Supporters of the party like the idea, and supporters of other parties don't like the idea.

But the differences we get on those questions are usually far more substantial than what we find here on these two questions.

For context, most Conservatives in Canada do not want Canada to become the 51st state and want Canada to remain sovereign and independent - it's just in smaller numbers than everyone else.

To explain this, I would look at the elephant in the room: Donald Trump.

He is no elephant really, as elephants are generally quiet creatures. Instead, he's a gigantic mynah bird whose squawks can pierce eardrums.

But I recognize that some people like mynah birds, so much that they will follow everything the mynah bird says.

Just hop on Twitter. The same MAGA crew that told everyone to vote for Trump because he was going to keep the U.S. out of wars were fist-pumping when he said that he would use military force to take Greenland and Panama.

We can't deny that Trump has much clout. He is what many sociologists would call an opinion leader. His network of followers and devotees are attracted to his clear expression of values and perceived professional competence as a businessman and entrepreneur. He has developed deep trust among them.

This means that Trump's opinions often automatically become his followers' opinions, even when they change.

And what is the typical demographic of Trump's supporters? Young, male, and conservative.

The same groups were the most likely to support Trump's idea of a 51st state in our survey.

What I think is going on here is that a section of the Canadian population is merely following their preferred opinion leader, and that support for Canadian annexation is not so much borne out of discontentment with Canada itself or love of the American way of life, but only because Donald Trump says he likes the idea.

He could come out tomorrow and announce that he is donating a fleet of stealth bombers to Canada as compensation for the tariffs, and this crowd would like to cheer.

Again, not to pick on this subgroup of Canadians. All of us have been guilty of this behaviour. It's the price we pay for being social creatures.

Our Problems Are Ours, Thank You Very Much

So, the long and the short of it is that most of us want Canada to stay independent and don't want to be part of the United States. We want to be our own country with the freedom to solve our problems, and we want our nation's leaders to get tricky when we are threatened.

As shown above, almost half of Canadians think Canada should take a tough stance with the United States regarding the Trump Tariff Threat (T3: Rise of the Donald!) and that U.S. concerns about border security are overblown.

Moreover, we know that Canada has problems like any other country, but they are our problems, and we can solve them independently.

Thanks for getting to the end! And I'll be back again with more findings.

Stay in touch!

Dr. Joseph Angolano - Pallas Data