Calgarians Penalize Mayor And Council

Calgary, AB - A new Ipsos-Reid poll conducted on behalf of CFCN shows that both Calgary City Council and Mayor Dave Bronconnier have suffered politically amid recent accusations that they are failing to communicate and cooperate effectively at City Hall. Half (48%) of Calgarians say they "disapprove" of the Mayor and City Council when it comes to their "ability to work together to address important issues". The public (46%) is almost twice as likely to place the blame for this failure to communicate and cooperate on City Council's shoulders than on the Mayor's (25%). One in ten (12%) say "both" are to blame and 6% say "neither" are to blame. Overall, the percentage of Calgarians who say that the Mayor and City Council are on the "right track" in terms of the direction they are taking the City of Calgary is still a robust 74%, but has dropped 13 points since October 2002.

Meanwhile, both the Mayor and Council have seen large drops in their individual approval ratings. After facing some criticism for his pointed speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce earlier this month, Mayor Bronconnier's approval rating has dropped 10 points since October and now sits at 74%. City Council has fared much worse, with its approval dropping 19 points from 81% approval in October to 62% today - a full 12 points lower than the public's current approval of the Mayor.

The public's approval of Council and the Mayor's "overall management of the City" has also suffered, dropping 16 points from 87% in October to 71% today. But, despite these recent troubles, the Mayor and City Council continue to receive very high marks for "making Calgary a better place to live" (81% approve), down a marginal 3 points since October 2002.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted between March 20th and March 24th, 2003. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 400 adult Calgarians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 5.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Calgary population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Calgary population according to the 2001 Census data.

For more information on this release, please contact:
Tim Olafson
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid
403.237.0066