Paper Title
Does Discrimination Impact confidence in Government Institutions? New Evidence from Canadian Context During Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to explore the link between perceived discrimination and reported confidence in Canadian institutions in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. During crises, severe public policy measures and literature suggests that public can easily loose confidence in decision makers. In the same vein, this literature doesn’t quantify these impacts and how these influences operate. Using Canadian survey data (N= 36.674 responding from 11 provinces), the study reflects the vital role of confidence toward the public institutions during the pandemic and how discrimination contributes to reduce the levels of confidence in institutions which is proxied by two measures (confidence in law enforcement institutions and confidence in government). We estimate a log it model of each of the different types of institutions (our dependent variables)where discrimination as main explanatory variableas sociated with the sense of belonging and using socio-demographic characteristics as control variables. To check the robustness of our analysis, we use an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression. Our findings suggests that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, discrimination negatively impacts the individual’s reported confidence manly in local public services such as the law enforcement and government institutions. The results suggest that this negative effect is strong and persistent. In addition, there is a positive association between the sense of belonging and the confidence in institutions. These findings are innovative and helpful for decision makers. GEL Classification: A14, I11, C52 Keywords - Covid-19, Confidence, Discrimination, Sense of Belonging, Canada