Principal Results
This study is the first to investigate and track public opinions and reactions to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s daily COVID-19 briefings. This study uses a machine learning approach and longitudinally examines public discourse about Prime Minister Trudeau’s daily briefings over time. The results reveal several prominent themes over time, including strict border measures, public responses to Prime Minister Trudeau’s policies, individuals’ financial challenges, government financial aid for enterprises and individuals, and essential work and frontline workers. In addition, the themes of vaccines and reopening were highly discussed from late April. The study demonstrates that YouTube comments are a useful source of public opinions and priorities during global health emergencies.
Theme 1: Strict Border Measures
This theme refers to comments that discuss topics such as border entry policy, international travel, and border screening measures. The majority of the comments in this theme requested that the government implement stricter border measures to prevent transmission from carriers who have or do not have COVID-19 symptoms, exemplified by the comment “CLOSE THE BORDER... Stop all flights from Italy and Europe NOW.” Public discourse on this topic started in mid-March and remained a hot topic until mid-April. The results correspond with a policy announced by the Canadian government on March 18, 2020, that implemented a ban on all foreign nationals entering Canada, including restrictions on all nonessential travel at the Canada–United States border. Discussions of border measures were not prominent in late April and early May but reappeared in mid-May, consistent with the border closure agreement between Canada and the United States, which was valid until May 21.
Our results suggest that the “border policy issue” has continuously been a concern for Canadians, who support strict border measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Canada. Previous studies demonstrated that air transportation has the potential to spread influenza, such as A/H1N1 [22], and enhanced precautions should be taken for travelers to countries with increasing cases of respiratory diseases, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome [23]. Brown and colleagues [24] showed that airport exit and entry screening at international borders facilitated the rapid detection of illness and the implementation of appropriate public health control measures to prevent the spread of Ebola virus. Our results suggest that future research can provide empirical evidence for the public and policy makers regarding the effectiveness of border measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as this has been a primary public concern over time.
Theme 2: Public Responses to Prime Minister Trudeau’s Policies
Public responses to Prime Minister Trudeau’s policies refer to public opinion comments on the Canadian government, parties, or the Prime Minister himself. The majority of comments include opinions regarding the government’s performance and policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. One representative comment is “Respect and listen the Prime Minister, he is trying his best with the Government to keep everyone in our Country safe from Covid19 with emergency funds for those that need it.” Compared to other themes, this theme is more popular, and it continuously received public attention from mid-March to late May. The popularity of this theme is due to the positive interaction dynamic between the general public and the government of Canada, which encourages people to communicate with government organizations on social networks. This interaction can be traced back to 2011, when Canada acknowledged the need to use social media to interact with the public for the first time [25]. Social media users in Canada are primarily interested in communicating with the government and obtaining customized information [26]. One study [27] showed that social media engages the public to foster participatory dialogues and discussions of policy development and implementation. In addition, we found criticisms related to the government’s COVID-19–relevant policies, such as:
Government Health Officials WHAT? They are months behind! Recommended NO MASKS only because they did not prepare, and they hadn't enough masks.
Previous studies have examined mixed sentiments toward governments’ policies in emergencies. During the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, more than half the US population felt positive emotions toward the government’s policy responses, while a certain number of people did not [28].
Theme 3: Individuals’ Financial Challenges
Financial challenges refer to comments that include people’s discussion, concerns, or policy proposals related to financial loss during the pandemic, such as “having no income for essential living costs due to lost jobs.” One representative comment is:
I’m more worried about the financial issue than the health one right now. We are doing everything we can health-wise in this family, but my son is now out of work, and we know hubby will be soon.
Our results show that the public has been frequently and continuously discussing finance-related topics since Prime Minister Trudeau’s first daily briefing. The assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market in Canada shows that the pandemic drove a 32% reduction in aggregate weekly hours worked from February to April 2020, along with a 15% reduction in employment [29]. As indicated by Statistics Canada, the average net savings for all Canadian households was CAD $852 (US $671) in 2018 [30], which suggests that people may be unable to afford essential living costs if they do not receive a basic income.
We found a positive correlation between the government’s policies supporting individuals and public attention to financial challenges. CERB was launched on April 6, 2020; nearly 3.5 million Canadians applied for this benefit in the first week, and this number increased to 7.12 million on April 24, 2020 [31]. More than 7 million people received CAD $2000 (US $1575) from the Canadian government in April, which explains the temporary decrease in the public attention toward financial challenges in early May.
Theme 4: Government Financial Aid for Enterprises and Individuals
Discussion about enterprises and individual financial aid plans was prominent from March to May 2020. This theme includes discussions of government financial aid plans and programs supporting either enterprises or individuals, such as CERB, CESB, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, and the Canada Emergency Business Account. This theme is different from theme 3, individuals’ financial challenges, which focuses on individuals’ concerns and discussions of their financial obstacles during the outbreak. In late March, the theme of government financial aid became prominent when the government administration firstly announced a number of economic stimulation programs, exemplified by this comment: “If your business/source of income was interrupted due to COVID-19, whether you lost your business or not, you could still try to apply, as you would be in true need of help at this point.” Our results confirm those of previous research on emergency individual financial aid during the pandemic and the importance of financial aid programs for businesses [32,33]. The longitudinal discussions on financial aid plans suggest that financial aid during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical for the public, and further research is suggested to assess the need for financial aid programs and evaluate their implementation.
Theme 5: Essential Work and Frontline Workers
Essential work and frontline workers was a prominent theme in the comments related to Prime Minister Trudeau’s daily briefings, such as the welfare system in Canada, incentive pay for essential work, and protection of frontline workers. One representative comment stated, “The government should be incentivizing those who have to work during a pandemic, even a $500/month incentive.” This was an active public discussion topic in mid-March; it lost public attention for 20 days, and then became prominent again in mid-April. Our results are consistent with an earlier study that shows that frontline workers should be supported, and public support of frontline workers has been related to a speech by the Prime Minster of India [34]. Our findings suggest that Prime Minister Trudeau’s daily speech advocating for frontline workers also resulted in support and attention from the general public. For example, Prime Minister Trudeau mentioned essential work and frontline workers several times during his daily briefings, especially on April 29 and May 7. Our study suggests that political efforts in acknowledging essential workers has a substantial impact on the general public’s awareness. It is worth examining whether public acknowledgment influences people’s behaviors, such as strictly following social isolation and quarantine measures.
Theme 6: Vaccines
Public discussion of vaccines is another prominent theme that emerged in April. We classified all relevant topics in this theme, such as the development of vaccines, exemplified by this comment: “It could take years to come up with a vaccine, you’ve been doing a good job, Trudeau. Don’t it up by making statements you can’t back up.” Previous studies analyzing Tweets related to COVID-19 also found that vaccines were a highly discussed topic [7]. Our findings provide further evidence that vaccines have been a significant public concern among Canadians during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, we also found misinformation regarding vaccines on social media, where some comments supported that vaccines are a type of conspiracy. Our findings suggest that the Canadian government should provide more resources to the public to dispel misinformation regarding vaccines. Proper public education is essential to raise public awareness and to mobilize and engage people in communities in Canada.
Limitations
There are several limitations to this study. First, this paper is not based on random sampling. We purposively collected comments that were posted by YouTube users under Prime Minister Trudeau’s briefing videos. They only represent a portion of the public opinions regarding Prime Minister Trudeau’s daily briefings during the COVID-19 pandemic, which causes biases. Second, our sample size is relatively small compared to the large amount of data on Twitter. Third, we treated secondary comments (ie, comment to comment) in the same manner as first-level comments for the study aims. Thus, this study has limitations in presenting the structural relationship between first-level and second-level comments. Finally, we retrieved all videos, comments, and associated data on May 25, 2020, three days after the last day of the Prime Minister’s daily briefing. It is noted that the evaluations could be different due to the increased number of comments added over time.