British Columbia Premier David Eby is tied for the second least popular provincial leader in the country, according to new polling from the Angus Reid Institute.
The pollster’s latest approval ratings for Canadian premiers gave Eby a 41 per cent approval rating, down five points from June and 12 points from March.
“We find a pretty distinct downward trend forming now for David Eby,” Angus Reid Institute research director Dave Korsinski told Global News.
“Pretty clearly something is going on here.”
Korsinski said it is typical for a premier’s popularity to fade over time, but that all provincial leaders received something of a “Trump bump” in the spring when tensions flared with the United States over tariffs and annexation threats.
Since then, he said only Eby and Quebec Premier Francois Legault — the country’s least popular premier with just 22 per cent favourability — have seen a steady downward slide.
Korsinski said in Eby’s case, British Columbians have since rated numerous issues as a higher priority than tensions with the U.S., none of them easy for the government to solve.
Cost of living remains the top issue in the province (54 per cent), followed by health care (48 per cent) and housing (35 per cent), he said.
“The cost of inflation is really key for a lot of people, and what we’ve seen is the economy is shedding jobs — two months in a row now that we’ve lost 15,000-plus jobs in the province,” Korsinski said, adding the province is facing mounting debt.
“That’s a little bit easier to manage when you’ve got Trump in the news and Canada and the 51st state and saying, ‘We’ve got to support our businesses and we’ve got to backstop all of these different areas of the economy,’ but now that people are a few months removed from that, the Trump issue is way down.”
Korsinski said those economic issues, combined with ongoing labour strife in B.C., Eby’s recent comments on curtailing immigration and his government’s legislation to fast-track resource projects over Indigenous objection mean his approval could be taking hits among people of different political backgrounds who are animated by very different issues.
Despite the challenges, Korsinski said Eby still holds one political advantage: his chief opponent, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, has a lower favourability score than he does, with just 28 per cent approval.
“So Eby has a pretty significant advantage there, but when you start to lose out on the issues, it can become difficult to connect with people if they don’t trust that you’re going to make things better,” Korsinski said.
“They gave them this bump in March and said, you know, let’s rally around the premier, let’s rally around the country, but now they want results. And I don’t think that’s what people are perceiving right now.”
At 41 per cent, Eby is now tied in favourability with Ontario Premier Doug Ford — though Ford has seen his support climb by three per cent since June and surge from the 20s last year.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew remains the most popular leader in Canada (61 per cent), followed by Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston (53 per cent), New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt (52 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier John Hogan (51 per cent).
The only premiers to see their favourability increase since June were Hogan (+12), Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe (+1) and Ford.
The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Aug. 28 to Sept. 5, 2025, among a randomized sample of 4,045 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum, including 528 British Columbians. The margin of error for British Columbia is +/- 4 per cent.