Canadians feeling let down by Team Canada at Olympics: Poll
Canada only won 21 medals last month — the country's sixth-worst ever showing at a Winter Games
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OTTAWA — A heartbreaking loss to the Americans and a dismal showing at the podium have Canadians taking a dim view of Team Canada.
That’s according to numbers released Wednesday by Liaison Strategies, which found a majority of Canadians think Team Canada underperformed at this year’s winter games.
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Liaison Strategies principal David Valentin said the results demonstrate a clear sense of disappointment in how Team Canada fared in Milano-Cortina.
“While expectations were high heading into the Games, the reality of the results has led to a significant reassessment by the Canadian public,” he said.
Prior to last month’s Winter Olympics, 38% of those polled expected Canada to perform better than in previous years, compared to 42% who felt Team Canada would perform about the same, and just 12% who predicted Canada would perform worse.
Flash forward to after the games, where 60% felt Team Canada’s performance was worse than expected, while just eight per cent said Canada did better than expected.
Before the games, 76% of those polled said Canada’s Olympic team instills a sense of national pride in Canada — a number that fell to 64% after the games wrapped.
Those who said Team Canada didn’t make them proud of their country grew pre-games to post-games, increasing from seven per cent to a quarter of all respondents.
Disappointment was highest in Atlantic Canada, where 70% of those polled said Team Canada performed worse than expected.
That number increases falls to 47% in British Columbia, the highest recorded across Canada.
Milan medal count for Canada ranked sixth
Milano-Cortina saw Canada’s worst medal tally in 24 years.
Canada only managed to win 21 medals at the 2026 Winter Games — five gold, seven silver and nine bronze.
That’s three less than what Canada won at the 2006 games in Turin, and eight less than the 29 total medals won in 2018 at PyeongChang, Canada’s best showing ever at a winter Olympics.
Canada won its most winter gold medals in the 2010 Vancouver games, netting 14 alongside seven silver and five bronze.
Canada saw its worst modern-era performance at the 1988 Calgary games, only managing to make the podium five times — and much like the 1976 Montreal games took home zero gold medals.
That dismal outcome prompted Canada to launch its “Own the Podium” campaign, which greatly increased Canada’s performance at subsequent games.
Canada also performed poorly at the 1992 Albertville games, where Canada only won seven medals.
Lukewarm support for a Canadian bid remains largely unchanged
Despite Canada’s poor medal showing, support for Canada hosting another games remains tepid.
Twenty-eight per cent of those polled before the games opposed a Canadian olympic bid due to the high costs.
Of the 65% who would support a bid, 42% said they’d support it only if no new permanent venues were constructed, while only 23% said they strongly support the Olympics coming back to Canada.
The poll was conducted between Feb. 23 and March 7 among 1,000 Canadians, with a margin-of-error of ±3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
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