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Canadians have a slightly more favourable view of the insurance and financial sector this year, but the perception of American brands has suffered because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, according to Leger’s annual company reputation survey released Thursday.

Of the 30 sectors included, perceptions on banking and credit as well as insurance and finance sectors both improved by two points this year. The automotive sector improved the most by gaining four points.

The maximum score allotted in the survey is 100 points; negative scores are also possible.

Meanwhile, drugstores and shipping tied for last place, losing four points each this year compared to last year.

As for individual companies, Payment processor Interac was the only financial services company to make the top 10, with a score of 69 placing it at seventh. Other top Canadian companies included Canadian Tire at fifth place and Dollarama at eighth place.

Insurers Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life gained five points, the most of any financial sector company.

At the same time, Canada Post dropped from 61 points in 2024 to 16 points in 2025, the largest drop of the 326 companies included in the survey, primarily due to the labour strike last Christmas, the report said. However, it rebounded to 40 points by March.

“When the mail comes to your house… we do have a short memory,” Lisa Covens, senior vice-president of public affairs and communications in central Canada with Leger, said in an interview. “Canada being in the name of Canada Post is really working in their favour at this particular juncture.”

Trump effect

Since the original data was collected from November 2024 to January 2025, mostly before Trump took office, Leger collected more data afterwards to see how perceptions changed toward the top 50 companies and well-known American firms like Amazon and Tesla, Covens said.

The second survey found that Canadians view companies owned by Trump’s political allies more negatively. Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, dropped from an already unfavourable -6 points before Trump’s second term in January to -48 points in March. Likewise, Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, fell from 64 to 35 points in the same period.

Other American companies, like Costco, Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s, all dropped between 11 and 22 points each since Trump took office. At the same time, Canadian Tire gained four points, becoming the most admired company, followed closely by Interac in second place.

Almost one-fifth (19%) of Canadians have dropped U.S.-based subscription services like Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime, Covens said. “Canadians are more often looking to buy Canadian and they’re shying away from the American convenience brands.”

While Canadians were quick to forgive Canada Post, it may take longer for us to do the same with American companies in a post-Trump world.

“We’re seeing that [Canadians are] already changing their behaviour in terms of where they’re spending their money and where their loyalty is,” Covens said. “So, it may take a while… for people to go back to their old ways.”

Leger surveyed more than 38,000 Canadians and included brands with a nationwide presence.