Canadians React To Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling

Toronto, ON - In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on private healthcare in Quebec, Ipsos-Reid fielded a survey among 1000 Canadians nationally from June 14th-16th, 2005 that sought to gauge the nation's reaction to this well-publicized judgment. The survey, provided exclusively to CanWest/Global, reveals that Canadians have mixed feelings about these events and their possible effect on the future of Medicare in Canada.

As an introduction to the topic Ipsos-Reid asked respondents to reflect upon last week's decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down the ban on private medical insurance being used to pay for basic services offered by the public healthcare system. They were told that while this ruling only applies to Quebec, it would likely apply to all provinces in the near future. With these considerations in mind they were asked to consider a series of statements about the potential impacts of the ruling.

A majority (64%) think that this ruling "will lead to two-tiered healthcare in Canada - one for the rich and one for the poor", and 57% would like their "province to use the Notwithstanding Clause to ban private insurance and protect public healthcare". Most (57%) believe "doctors and nurses will be leaving the public system to work in a new private system, which will cause shortages in the public system".

But Canadians are split when it comes to whether or not they think the court's ruling will lead to American-style healthcare in Canada - half think it will (50%), the other half does not (47%).

In fact, seven in ten (70%) agree they should be able to buy services from a private healthcare provider if they want to - 37% strongly feely this way, and more than half of Canadians see two potential positive outcomes as a result of this ruling:

• 60% percent think it will lead to shorter waiting lists, and
• 54% think it will lead to improvements in the quality and availability of the healthcare services that their family receives.

When asked which Federal party leader they believe would do the best job of dealing with this new challenge to the future of our healthcare system - Paul Martin or Stephen Harper? Four in ten (41%) chose Paul Martin and 30% chose Stephen Harper, a further 22% chose "neither" of these two leaders.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll provided exclusively to CanWest/Global and fielded from June 14th to June 16th, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1000 adult Canadians were interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the aggregate results are considered accurate to within 1773.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within each sub-grouping of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Please open attached files to view full press release and detailed tables.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker
President & COO
Ipsos-Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

Ipsos-Reid
Ipsos-Reid is Canada's market intelligence leader and the country's leading provider of public opinion research. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos-Reid employs more than 300 researcher professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in Canada, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and on-line panels. Ipsos-Reid's Canadian marketing research and public affairs practices are staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, offering the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada--including the Ipsos Trend Report, the leading source of public opinion in the country--all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Ipsos-Reid is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

To learn more, please visit www.ipsos.ca.

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