While no one can predict the future, we recently asked Canadians to imagine it. Let’s take a closer look at what they found there.

For many Canadians, the future view is clouded and darkening. Most significantly, those with the gloomiest outlooks can be found in portions of society that have typically been the most optimistic.

Western societies have long believed in the promise of a better future for the next generations. Indeed, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness inspired unrivalled economic and military dominance in the United States where incomes and lifespans increased while racial prejudice and illiteracy declined.

On more than one occasion, Canada even enjoyed top spot on the Human Development Index.

In recent years though, there has been a growing recognition that the next generation can’t count on this ever-improving quality of life.

New economic powers — China, especially — are expanding rapidly, while economies in Europe and North America have been cooling. At the same time, we’ve seen western foreign policy fail in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Using time series, we’ll chart how perspectives have changed in the past several years.

The picture is not at all pretty.

Growing worries about the future viability of western civilization may be shattering the basic beliefs and motivations that underpin its success. During a period roughly coinciding with the new century and 9/11, we saw a serious erosion in the belief of inevitable progress and dominance in the west.

In Canada, this longer-term erosion of confidence in the inevitability of progress and a better future has taken root. Looking back, one-third of Canadians believe they are better off than the last generation, compared to 37 per cent who say they are worse off. Looking forward, Canadians by a margin of four to one feel the next generation will be worse off.

Although Canada’s economy has not been hit as hard as others around the world, a sense of relative decline has not escaped the public.

Not only is our rearview now more likely to feature regret and decline, our long-term view of the future is unremittingly grim.

Worse, these negative views are most entrenched amongst the Gen X, Gen Y, and millennial cohorts who will shoulder both the responsibilities and fruits of the future. These outlooks have been getting worse rather than better during the past several years and the sense of up-and-down cycles may be giving way to one of a long-term maelstrom.

To make matters worse, next generations are losing faith not just in the economy, but also in public institutions and democracy. There is a sense that the political order and government favour the old over the young.

Once such a vicious circle of despair takes hold, it may well be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now may be the time to confront the reality of a new generational tension rooted in a belief of the end of progress.

Methodology:

EKOS’ weekly tracking polls are conducted using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator.

In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households. This dual frame yields a near perfect unweighted distribution on age group and gender, something almost never seen with traditional landline RDD sample or interviewer-administered surveys.

The field dates for this survey are February 21-28, 2012. In total, a random sample of 3,699 Canadians aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-1.6 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 to ensure the samples composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.