Our latest poll tracks what could be a political paradox: Canadians are feeling very downbeat about the economy — but remarkably upbeat about their new government. In fact, the level of support for the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to be without precedent in any of our past polling.

The government enjoys support across virtually all regions and demographic groups. On the other hand, there appears to be considerable dissatisfaction among members of the Conservative base — who are very unhappy with the direction of the government — and in Alberta and Saskatchewan; 46 per cent of Albertans are dissatisfied, along with 49 per cent of those polled in Saskatchewan.

The new government now shows remarkable strength among voters who belong to a demographic once claimed by the Conservatives — older voters. Liberal support now rises progressively with age.

Liberal support is considerably softer among those with a high school education than among Canadians who attended college or university.

Confidence in the direction of the federal government has almost doubled — and it doesn’t appear to be coming down. In fact, the current score of 68 is a record high for the nearly twenty years we have been tracking this indicator.

These numbers will almost certainly decline, of course. The clearest threat to Liberal popularity right now is the fragile and stagnant economy.

The vast majority of Canadians think the economy is in recession — or worse. This bleak rating is reinforced by other indicators which show little sense of recent progress, nor much optimism about the odds of things getting better soon.

There are, however, some interesting shifts in how the public sees the medium-term prospects for their own economic conditions. While the short-term outlook is dominated by stagnation and pessimism, the medium-term sees a break in the gloom with a significant spike upwards in the number of people who see themselves better off five years from now.

So Canadians are not, in general, particularly hopeful that the new government will be able to turn the economy around immediately. The new government has opted for a decidedly different approach to economic policy. We expect voters to judge the success or failure of the Liberals’ economic approach in the longer (but not indefinite) term.

The outlook on job security has also worsened recently and we’re seeing a long-term slide in Canadians’ confidence in their marketable skills. This slide reflects a decrease in satisfaction with Canadian workplaces, which is both a reflection and driver of the stagnation we see today.

So we see a government enjoying heady heights of approval, notwithstanding clear public awareness that the economy is performing very poorly. It’s clear that Canadians have their eyes on the medium-term outcomes, not the immediate future. The government faces some daunting challenges over the coming months — but for now, voters seem to be willing to cut it some slack.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

A note on methodology:

The article draws on data collected through two separate surveys. Both studies were conducted using EKOS’ unique, hybrid online/telephone research panel, Probit. Our panel offers exhaustive coverage of the Canadian population (i.e., Internet, phone, cell phone), random recruitment (in other words, participants are recruited randomly, they do not opt themselves into our panel), and equal probability sampling. All respondents to our panel are recruited by telephone using random digit dialling and are confirmed by live interviewers. Unlike opt-in online panels, Probit supports margin of error estimates. We believe this to be the only probability-based online panel in Canada.

The field dates for the first survey are December 7-10, 2015. In total, a random sample of 1,956 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey (1,811 online, 145 by phone). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The field dates for the second survey are January 11-18, 2016. In total, a random sample of 2,598 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey (2,312 online, 286 by phone). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 1.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.