When a major international event comes to a Canadian city, most people watching from a distance tend to feel good about it. There's the economic lift and the cultural energy of a country showing up on the world stage. Those feelings are real, and they come through clearly in new survey data Nextdoor Canada commissioned with Angus Reid.
Ask residents in the cities where it's actually happening, though, and the picture gets more complicated. 62% of Canadians say the impact is net positive. In Vancouver, that drops to 45%, which is an even split, with as many saying net negative as positive. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) sits at 57% positive, but with a clear undercurrent of concern about transit, costs and whether city governments have thought through what happens in the neighbourhoods closest to the action.
Key findings
Are people in Canada happy about hosting international events?
Start with what the data says clearly: Canadians want to host. Nearly two-thirds see the overall impact as positive, and outside the host cities themselves, that enthusiasm gets considerably stronger. Alberta comes in at 76% net positive. Saskatchewan reaches 80%. Atlantic Canada sits at 63%, in line with the national average.
Even in the GTA, where doubts about readiness run high, a majority still says the balance tips positive. The residents most directly affected by hosting aren't opposed to it. They just have more specific questions about how it gets done.
Host city residents are worried about costs to taxpayers
In both host cities, cost to taxpayers leads as the top concern — 47% in the GTA, 56% in Vancouver. That's consistent with the national picture. Where the cities diverge is in their secondary worries, and those differences are worth understanding.
In the GTA, traffic and transit stand out. Twenty-eight per cent of GTA respondents named delays as a top concern, higher than any other region in the country. It's not the dominant worry, but it reflects something specific to Toronto: a transit system under pressure on a normal day, and residents who can picture exactly what a major event does to it.
In Vancouver, the secondary concern is rising costs for local residents, cited by 15% — higher than the GTA's seven per cent on the same question. For a city that has been watching housing and living costs climb for years, a large-scale international event carries a particular kind of anxiety.
Across the country, 89% of Canadians have at least one concern about hosting. The 11% who say they have no concerns are very much in the minority.
Are Canadian cities prepared for big events?
Nationally, Canadians are split on whether cities can pull this off while keeping neighbourhood disruption manageable. Forty-six per cent say prepared, 43% say not. In most contexts, that reads as roughly neutral. In the GTA, with Toronto as a host city, it tips into a majority saying cities are not ready. Fifty-three per cent of GTA respondents don't feel confident that local neighbourhoods have been adequately considered. Only 39% do.
Vancouver is essentially 50/50. Alberta, with no direct hosting pressure, sits at 59% prepared. The further you are from the event, the more confident you feel about someone else's ability to manage it.
This isn't cynicism. Residents in host cities want to see the planning and the evidence that someone has thought about their street. When that happens, the goodwill is already there to meet it. The majority of host city residents are still rooting for this to go well.
Where Nextdoor fits in
Big events become neighbourhood events. When a road closes or a transit route changes, that's the information that matters most to people living in host communities. Nextdoor is where those updates travel, between neighbours who know their own streets block by block.
As Canadian cities step into the spotlight this summer, the conversations that matter most will happen at the block level. That's where Nextdoor lives.
Join Nextdoor to stay connected with what's happening in your neighbourhood this summer.
Survey Methodology: These findings are from a survey conducted by Nextdoor from May 27 to May 29, 2026, among a representative sample of 1,503 online adult Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. The survey was conducted in English and French. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2.53 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.