Poll highlights belief in rising corruption

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This article was published 29/11/2024 (330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitobans’ trust in businesses — and government’s ability to address corruption — is on a downhill slope, a new Angus Reid Institute poll found.

“I feel like things are getting more and more shifty, especially after COVID,” said Will Houston, as he shopped in a Winnipeg supermarket this week.

Prices across the board have skyrocketed over the past few years, he noted.

“I fully acknowledge that there are supply chains and there’s people who need to be paid all the way back to the producer,” Houston said. “But I think that there are people who are taking a higher cut than they used to.”

Across Canada, 90 per cent of Angus Reid’s 1,615 respondents believed it’s common for businesses to take advantage of consumers. The pollster labelled this “business corruption.”

Eighty-eight per cent of 102 Manitoba respondents agreed.

A majority of Manitobans — 75 per cent — believed business and political corruption has increased in Canada over the past three years. Money laundering, tax evasion and backroom political deals were among the options highlighted.

“People are asking questions and there’s no answers,” said Eileen Mudry, another supermarket shopper.

She believes price-fixing in the grocery industry persists, not unlike the alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread that’s been unfolding in court over the past five years, involving bakery giant Canada Bread Co.

Construction is another sector where Mudry would like to see more transparency.

Construction topped the list of industries Manitobans figured were susceptible to corruption. Real estate took second place, followed by transportation, warehousing and mining, in the poll.

Nearly half of Manitoba respondents — 44 per cent — reported dealing with an organization they suspected engaged in “illegal or corrupt practice,” including being connected to the underground economy, the Angus Reid Institute found.

When asked, 77 per cent of Manitoba respondents expressed a lack of confidence in government fighting Canadian business corruption.

News stories highlighting errant businesses and corruption likely contribute to the declining trust, noted Jon Roe, Angus Reid Institute research associate.

“(People) see these big stories come out, and they feel like it’s common around them,” Roe said.

One shopper the Free Press spoke to recalled a story about temporary foreign worker abuse altering her view on businesses.

Loren Remillard, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, echoed Roe: “We have a tendency to fixate on those rare instances where a company has been found guilty of corruption or there’s accusations of improper behaviour.”

There’s a major difference between prosecutable corruption and bad business practices. For example, a customer not agreeing with a refund policy does not mean that company is corrupt, Remillard said.

Often, bad business practices lead to company closures — people will stop buying and will share their negative experience, spreading the word, Remillard continued.

“I would contend that the market weeds out bad actors,” he said. “Courts weed out corrupt ones.”

Most Manitoba businesses operate at the “highest ethical standards,” Remillard added, pointing to Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. The association measures corruption around the world. In 2023, it placed Canada 12th of 180 countries for transparency; the United States sat at 24th. Canada jumped from a 14th-place ranking in 2022.

The Winnipeg Police Service tracked an overall drop in counterfeiting for the 12 months ending in August compared to the year prior. Police counted 96 cases, a 36 per cent year-over-year decline. The WPS wasn’t available for comment by print deadline.

Entities losing trust — business, government and media — have a responsibility to address perception, Remillard said.

The Angus Reid Institute partnered with the Mindset Social Innovation Foundation and the World Refugee and Migration Council on its poll. Data was collected between Nov. 14 and 19. No margin of error can be ascribed because an online panel was used.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com