Albertans Want Next Government to Focus on Healthcare (46%), Acting in Taxpayers' Best Interest (37%), Providing an Open and Honest Government (28%) and Diversifying the Economy (25%) Above All Else

Calgary, AB - As the polls close and the votes are being counted, an Ipsos poll conducted for Global News and Corus Entertainment has revealed that Albertans want the new government to focus on healthcare, acting in the best interest of taxpayers, providing an open and honest government and diversifying the economy above all else.

From among a list of ten possible areas of focus for the newly-elected government, Albertans were asked to identify the primary and secondary issue that they want the new government to address as part of its new governing agenda. When their primary and secondary issues were combined, four in particular rose to the top: `a healthcare system that I can trust to be there when I need it' (46%), `acting in the best interest of taxpayers' (37%), `ensuring open an honest government (28%) and `diversifying our economy' (25%).

Other issues that fewer Albertans want the new government to focus on include: creating jobs for Albertans (19%), having the right level of corporate taxes (18%), post-secondary education (13%), planning for our towns and cities (7%), reflecting how Albertans want to be seen on the national and international stage (5%), or some other issue (3%).

The table below lists various areas of importance, and the proportion of Albertans who say that each is their primary and secondary issue, respectively, that they want the new government to focus on as part of its new agenda:

Interestingly, the order changes (top 2 issues combined) depending on which of the three major parties Albertans voted for, reflecting the differing agendas that the parties put forward throughout the campaign:

• Among NDP voters, the top five issues that they want the next government to tackle are: healthcare (49%), acting in the best interest of taxpayers (33%), diversifying the economy (25%), creating jobs (24%) and having the right level of corporate taxes (22%).
• Among PC voters, the top five issues are: healthcare (39%), diversifying the economy (38%) acting in the best interest of taxpayers (34%), ensuring open and honest government (25%), having the right level of corporate taxes (21%).
• Among Wildrose voters, the top five issues include: acting in the best interest of taxpayers (48%), healthcare (44%), ensuring open and honest government (37%), having the right level of corporate taxes (18%) and diversifying the economy (16%).

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 27th and 29th, 2015 on behalf of Global News and Corus Entertainment. For this survey, a sample of 460 adults living in Alberta was interviewed via the Ipsos I-Say panel. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of polls where online interviewing was employed is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ - 5.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Albertan adults been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Jamie Duncan
Vice President
Ipsos Public Affairs
(403) 969-3235
[email protected]

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