Canadians give Ottawa a passing grade, while seeing extraordinary economic pressures.

Most Canadians, including many who voted NDP and Conservative this year, give the Carney government a passing grade on 21 of 21 items tested.

Across 21 different ways of measuring the performance of the government, most Canadians feel the Carney government is doing a good or acceptable job. This is from the latest Spark Advocacy survey of 3000 adults across Canada, earlier this month.

“Poor” ratings range from a low of 21% for “respecting the rights of Indigenous people” and 41% for showing adequate “concern about the cost of living”.

Among the items that are most likely to generate a “good” rating are: working in partnership with the provinces, focusing on the right priorities, working to improve the economy, looking to diversity the economy, invest in military and defence and diversify our trade relations.

Given that most of these respondents voted for a party other than the Liberals, these numbers suggest a public which is accepting of the agenda set by the Carney government.

This is built on the fact that most NDP voters give the government good or acceptable ratings on all 21 items. Among Conservative voters, between a quarter and a half offer good or acceptable ratings on everything tested. A lot of Conservative voters aren’t angry about the election outcome or disappointed with the agenda of the government.

Perhaps most revealing is to look at how Albertans have assessed the government’s efforts so far. On 20 of 21 measures, a majority give the Carney government a passing grade, including 58% on “having the right policy on oil and gas. Bear in mind that the Liberals won 28% of the vote in the province.

Of course, none of this is a forecast of where things will be in the months to come.

The main takeaway, for me, is that for now, Canadians are accepting what they see as the focus, the choices and the pace of the new government. This despite - or perhaps in part because of - the fact that 92% believe that the country “is facing more intense economic challenges than it has in many years”. People do not think this is a normal time, and they are not thinking about politics in the way that has been the norm in recent years.