This is The Week in Polling, your Saturday dose of interesting numbers from top pollsters in Canada and around the world, curated by The Hub. Here’s what we’re looking at this week.

One in five Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24 view terrorist group Hamas positively

Just under one in five Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24 view Hamas positively. Almost exactly a year after Hamas members, recognized as terrorists by the Canadian government, killed over 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 (many of which are still being held hostage) about 20 percent of Canada’s young people do not see them in a negative light.

At least seven Canadians were killed by Hamas during their attack on October 7th. Some of these Canadians fall into the age demographic mentioned above. Ben Mizrachi, a 22-year-old Vancouverite who served in the Israeli Defence Forces as a medic; Netta Epstein, a 21-year-old Israeli Canadian who heroically jumped on a Hamas grenade to save his fiancée; Shir Georgy, a 22-year-old Supernova music festival attendee, and Tiferet Lapidot, a 23-year-old who attended the same music festival.

Since October 7th, Canadian streets have regularly been filled with pro-Palestinian supporters protesting Israel’s military response to the massacre, while also targeting Canadian Jewish community centres and businesses. This week, a group of protestors in Vancouver burned a Canadian flag, while wearing green headbands reminiscent of the ones Hamas militants wear.

More than half of Canadians who want kids have waited longer than they’d like, primarily due to the cost

Canada may be approaching a birth rate crisis as the country’s fertility rate hit its lowest point in recorded history, for the second year in a row in 2023.

More than 50 percent of Canadians want children, but have had to wait longer than they would have liked, largely due to uncertainty surrounding their finances and the job market (41 percent), the cost of childcare (33 percent), and the housing affordability crisis (31 percent).

Out of all generations, Canadian millennials are the least concerned about climate change

Overall, 62 percent of Canadians are concerned about climate change, representing a decrease of 14 percent from an identical Abacus Data poll conducted last year.

When broken down by age, millennials are the least worried about climate change, with only 31 percent of Canadians between the ages of 30 and 44 feeling concerned.

The age group most worried about climate change is baby boomers, with 50 percent of Canadians over 60 concerned about the long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians think Quebec should not get special treatment or cultural protections

Canada is a multilingual country with two official languages nationally: English and French. Quebec, however, maintains only the latter as its sole official language. It has been Quebec’s only official language since 1974.

About 22 percent of Canadians have French as their mother tongue, compared to 76 percent who first spoke English. The majority of Canadian Francophones, 84 percent, live in Quebec. The Government of Quebec’s website cites the French language as “the common language of the Québec nation.”

Yet, the preservation of the French language and culture is a contentious issue in Canada, as 64 percent of Canadians report believing that Quebec should not be afforded special treatment or protections regarding its French language and culture. Some of these special treatments may include how Quebec sets its own immigration standards, which bolstered French language requirements for immigrants.

Canada’s fertility rate has dropped to the second lowest in the G7, now nearing Japan.

According to new data from Statistics Canada, in 2023, Canada’s fertility rate (the average number of children a woman births in her lifetime) fell to 1.26 from 1.33–the lowest rate ever recorded. “Replacement level,” which allows the population to replace itself from one generation to the next, requires a fertility rate of 2.1.

The agency reported Canada, “has now joined the group of ‘lowest-low’ fertility countries, including South Korea, Spain, Italy and Japan, with 1.3 children per woman or less.” The U.S., meanwhile, had a 2023 fertility rate of 1.62.

The country’s population growth is now 97 percent due to immigration. From 2022 to 2023, Canada welcomed 1.1 million immigrants. However despite this population increase in childbearing women, there were 351,000 births in both years, explaining the decline.

In the decade following 2013, Canada’s fertility rate dropped 21 percent. The two decades previous, from 1993 to 2013, it declined an average of only two percent.

Canada’s 2023 fertility rate is the same as Japan’s in 2022. In 2023, both Japan and Italy’s fertility rates fell to 1.2, tying for last place in G7 developed economies

Japan’s fertility rate has hovered around 1.2 for at least the past two decades. Low births and low immigration have resulted in population decline and warnings of a social cohesion breakdown in Japan’s rural villages, which are facing labour shortages, a shrinking tax base, empty schools, and an elderly population in need of health-care services. Canada has been spared the same solely due to strong population growth through immigration.

Just six decades ago, in 1960, Canada actually led in fertility among countries that would become the G7. Back then, Canada’s fertility rate was 3.81 children per woman, while the second-highest, the U.S., had 3.65 births per woman. That year, hormonal birth control pills were introduced to regulate menstrual cycles and then for contraception in 1969. In 1969, therapeutic abortions were also decriminalised.

Between 1991 and 2023, Germany was the only G7 country to increase its fertility rate. This was reportedly due to the country welcoming more than a million mostly young Syrian refugees in 2015, along with its expansion of parental benefits and childcare. However many pro-natalist government policies have been shown to fall flat or be flawed.

Comparing Canada’s provinces, British Columbia had 2023’s lowest fertility rate, at one child per woman. B.C.’s fertility was behind the Atlantic provinces (Nova Scotia at 1.05; Newfoundland and Labrador at 1.08; Prince Edward Island at 1.16), and Ontario at 1.22.

Saskatchewan has the highest fertility rate of Canada’s provinces, 1.63, which is more than the United Kingdom and Germany.

Prevailing social norms, rising housing costs, and the economic impact of parenthood are driving forces behind Canada’s national and provincial fertility rates.

The concern that parenting is massively time-consuming has deterred young people from beginning families amid burgeoning careers, a Cardus report revealed last year. Women in Canada report having half of the children they had hoped for.

Similarly, income disproportionately lost with motherhood–the result of insufficient childcare and career opportunities–has deterred many Canadian women from becoming mothers.

Canada’s reliance on immigration as opposed to childbirth supported by immigration, poses significant consequences for Canada’s demographics, The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer wrote last summer.