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The upcoming holiday gatherings with relatives may feel ripe for conflicts over politics, relationships, and social issues, but an online survey suggests a majority of Canadians still feel it’s important to spend time with loved ones.
“Over 70 per cent of Canadians feel these are important events,” said Leger’s executive director, Andrew Enns, in an interview Sunday about the market research company’s latest online poll on how Canadians feel about family gatherings.
The survey has also found that more than half — 52 per cent — are more cautious about what they say in discussions than they were a few years ago.
‘After all, they’re family’
“You should think family gatherings would be the most comfortable place to raise topics for debate, and you would hope it could be a respectful debate because, after all, they’re family,” said Enns.
“But that’s not the case.”
Leger conducted its online survey of 1,500 people across the country during the Thanksgiving long weekend.
The results of the online poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
A generational divide
In the survey, respondents were also asked about the topics most likely to spark an argument at the dinner table.
About half said the topic of politics caused the most arguments, followed by money (25 per cent) and immigration (19 per cent).
There was also a generational divide over the topics.
A significant portion of generation Z and millennials — 11 per cent to 23 — believe topics such as gender identity, parenting styles, social media, cancel culture, relationships or dating create issues among relatives.
However, 22 per cent of the older generation, or those aged 55 and over, find conversations on the state of the world and religion controversial.
While 36 per cent of respondents said they will share their opinion, “even if it adds fuel to the fire,” 24 per cent of people will change the topic if a battle of words erupts.
20 per cent of people changing the topic are men, while 28 per cent are women.
“Men will push forward with more controversial topics more than women,” Enns said.
Enns said Leger also conducted the online survey in the United States, with 1,500 Americans responding.
He said those responses weren’t too different from the Canadian ones.
About 72 per cent of Americans felt family gatherings are important.
Politics and money
The top two controversial issues at American dinner tables are also politics and money.
But unlike the third most debated topic being immigration at Canadian dinner tables, the third topic Americans found sparked the most battles among relatives is the general state of the world.
“There’s a feeling that in Canada, maybe we’re not as caught up in some of these big issues,” Enns said.
“That our debate isn’t necessarily as intense as it sometimes comes across in America. But as I said at the onset, we didn’t really see any big differences.”
Enns said he found it interesting to see the topics Canadians debated the most.
“The public discourse in the media, among politicians, is permeating down into the family,” Enns said.
He said relatives have been disagreeing for all of human history.
Enns said he himself remembers his family debating Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan in the early 2000s and the Vietnam War in the 1960s was also hot topic of discussion.
“The beauty of family is that you can you can have those conversations and sometimes have some fairly strong differences,” he said.
He said Canadians can avoid conflicts by warning their relatives about some topics they want off the table.
And he said they should find comfort in the fact that they aren’t the only ones dreading upcoming chats with their relatives about triggering topics.
He said the divisions that come with the holiday season are already appearing.
“We’re all asking already, ‘How much money do we spend on gifts’, or, ‘Do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?”‘ he said.
“This is some food for thought as we prepare for what’s going to happen in and around the dinner table in the weeks to come.”
