Quebec adults are less fond of Halloween than their children: survey
Posted October 30, 2025 8:37 am.
Quebec children will be among the most numerous in Canada to celebrate Halloween, but their parents will be the least likely to hand out candy and will spend less on it than other Canadians.
The Atlantic provinces, however, are the undisputed champions when it comes to celebrating Halloween.
A Léger poll reveals that children in the Atlantic provinces will be the most likely to go trick-or-treating, at 93 per cent, followed by those in Quebec and Alberta at 85 per cent.
At the bottom of the list are those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where only 69 per cent will participate in this ritual.
No one to hand out candy
While 68 per cent of households in the Atlantic provinces will have someone on hand to hand out candy, also placing them first, Quebec households will be the fewest—by far—to do so, at 28 per cent.
Quebec residents (29 per cent) and those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (28 per cent) are the least likely to decorate their homes for this pagan holiday, and again, Atlantic provinces lead the way with 55 per cent of households decorating.
Quebec also has the lowest percentage of adults (26 per cent) celebrating Halloween, whether by attending a costume party, a special event, or a horror movie night, for example. This time, the Atlantic provinces relinquish their top spot to Ontario, where 35 per cent of adults will celebrate Halloween.
As for candy spending, the Atlantic provinces will once again be the most generous, with their residents expecting to spend an average of $49.14, while the average expenditure in Quebec will be $41.61, the lowest amount. Quebecers who don’t intend to spend a penny on Halloween treats are also the most numerous, by a considerable margin at 46 per cent. Only 19 per cent of households in the Atlantic provinces will spend nothing.
Angels, Ghosts, and Other Beliefs
The polling firm also looked at popular beliefs and discovered that Quebecers are the least likely to believe in angels (38 per cent), while their neighbours in the Atlantic provinces are the most likely to believe in them (55 per cent). When it comes to ghosts and paranormal phenomena, Quebecers who believe in them (34 per cent) are close to the Canadian average (37 per cent), with Ontarians leading the way (42 per cent) and Manitobans and Saskatchewanians being the most skeptical (27 per cent).
Quebecers are, however, the most likely (40 per cent) to believe that “some people have special powers,” such as speaking to the dead or seeing people’s futures. Conversely, they are the least likely to believe in witches, and very few (less than 5 per cent) believe in vampires, werewolves, or zombies.
A 2,000-Year-Old Celtic Tradition
Halloween originates from the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer and the harvest, and whose origins date back more than 2,000 years. The Celts, who believed that spirits returned to Earth at this time, protected themselves by lighting large bonfires and dressing up in costumes in the hope of deceiving the spirits.
Faced with the persistence of this pagan festival, the Catholic Church sought to compete with it by decreeing Nov. 1st All Saints’ Day (or All Saints’ Day), and the night of Oct. 31st thus became “All Hallows’ Eve,” hence the English expression “All Hallows’ Eve,” which eventually became Halloween.
This tradition was brought to North America by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 19th century.
The online survey was conducted from Oct. 24th to 26th with 1,537 respondents. Although it has no margin of error due to the methodology, a probability sample of the same size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
