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When Justin Trudeau became Canada’s prime minister in 2015, his relentless promise to improve life for the middle class resonated so strongly with Shivaan Burke that she went to work for the local Liberal member of Parliament, who was elected along with Mr. Trudeau.
But a decade later, as Mr. Trudeau prepares to leave office amid deep voter discontent, Ms. Burke said little of what he pledged has made its way into her family’s daily life in Peterborough, Ontario, a onetime factory town about 80 miles northeast of Toronto.
Like many Canadians, Ms. Burke has become painfully aware of how much of her budget is now consumed by trying to fill her grocery cart.
And while Peterborough used to be one place people in Toronto came to escape high real estate prices, housing costs have soared there in recent years, just as they have in many parts of the country.
Ms. Burke, a contract worker for the local government, is among the many middle class Canadians who helped propel Mr. Trudeau to power, but who have grown increasingly frustrated by a persistently high cost of living and incomes that have failed to keep up.
The latest version of a regular survey for the The Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest financial institution, found that 55 percent of respondents “feel financially paralyzed due to rising costs.”
