BC Federal Political Scene
Federal Liberals (37%) Maintain Lead Over Alliance (26%); NDP (17%) Drops 5 Points
Clark (57%) Tops in Approval - Ahead of Chrйtien (51%) and Harper (51%); Newcomer Layton Trails (41%)
Vancouver, BC - In this spring's BC Reid Express poll on the federal political scene, Ipsos-Reid finds the federal Liberals (37%, up 2 points from December) continuing to enjoy a comfortable lead over the Canadian Alliance (26%, up 1 point) with BC's decided voters. Meanwhile, the election of Jack Layton as NDP leader has not yet paid dividends with the BC public. Federal NDP support has fallen 5 points this quarter to 17% among decided voters. The PC's have the support of 10 percent of decided voters (up 1 point), just ahead of the Greens at 9 percent (up 1 point).
Joe Clark retains his position as the leader with the highest job approval rating. Currently, 57% (up 6 points from December) of BC residents approve of the job Clark is doing as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Jean Chrйtien (51%, up 7 points) and Stephen Harper (51%, up 9 points) also have majority approval in their respective roles of Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition.
Jack Layton trails other leaders in performance approval this quarter. The new leader debuts on our quarterly tracking with an approval rate of 41% as NDP leader. At the same time, Layton has the lowest "disapproval" rating of any leader (23% vs. 47% Chrйtien, 33% Clark, 26% Harper).
These are the findings of a BC Ipsos-Reid poll conducted between March 3rd and 10th, 2003 among a representative cross-section of 800 British Columbian adults. These data are statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional, age and sex composition reflects that of the actual BC population according to 2001 Census data. With a provincial sample of 800, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the overall results are within 1773.5 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire adult BC population been polled. The margin of error will be larger for population sub-groups.
Joe Clark retains his position as the leader with the highest job approval rating. Currently, 57% (up 6 points from December) of BC residents approve of the job Clark is doing as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Jean Chrйtien (51%, up 7 points) and Stephen Harper (51%, up 9 points) also have majority approval in their respective roles of Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition.
Jack Layton trails other leaders in performance approval this quarter. The new leader debuts on our quarterly tracking with an approval rate of 41% as NDP leader. At the same time, Layton has the lowest "disapproval" rating of any leader (23% vs. 47% Chrйtien, 33% Clark, 26% Harper).
These are the findings of a BC Ipsos-Reid poll conducted between March 3rd and 10th, 2003 among a representative cross-section of 800 British Columbian adults. These data are statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional, age and sex composition reflects that of the actual BC population according to 2001 Census data. With a provincial sample of 800, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the overall results are within 1773.5 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire adult BC population been polled. The margin of error will be larger for population sub-groups.
- For more information, please contact:
Kyle Braid
Vice-President
604.257.3200
