Canadians Want Continued Government Ownership of PetroCanada

Toronto, ON - According to a new Ipsos-Reid survey conducted on behalf of the Council of Canadians, three quarters of Canadians (73%) agree with the statement "The Canadian federal government should not sell all its shares in PetroCanada as recently announced, but rather it should continue to have part ownership of PetroCanada because it is important to maintain Canadian ownership and influence to ensure Canada's energy security in the future."

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Council of Canadians poll conducted from March 30th to April 1st 2004. For the telephone survey, a randomly selected sample of 1000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.1 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 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 Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Three-Quarters Of Canadians (73%) Do Not Think The Federal Government Should Sell All Of Its PetroCanada Shares

Three-quarters of Canadians (73%) agree with the statement "The Canadian federal government should not sell all its shares in PetroCanada as recently announced, but rather it should continue to have part ownership of PetroCanada because it is important to maintain Canadian ownership and influence to ensure Canada's energy security in the future" (26% "somewhat agree", 47% "strongly agree"). One-quarter of Canadians (24%) disagree with this statement (11% "somewhat disagree", "13% "strongly disagree"), and 3% "don't know."

• Atlantic Canadians (80%) are the most likely to agree that the federal government should not sell all of its shares in PetroCanada and continue to have part ownership of PetroCanada, followed by residents of British Columbia (76%), Quebec (75%), Ontario (71%), and residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (68%) and Alberta (68%).

• Those Canadians who state that they are "frequent customers of PetroCanada" are significantly more likely than not-frequent PetroCanada customers to agree with this statement (80% vs. 69%).

• Canadian adults aged 18-34 are more likely than adults aged 35 and older to agree with this statement (80% vs. 70%).

• Women are significantly more likely than men to agree with this statement (85% vs. 60%).

• Canadians living in rural areas are more apt than those living in urban areas to agree with this statement (80% vs. 71%).

• Those Canadians without a university degree are more likely than those who have a university degree to agree with this statement (77% vs. 63%).

• As annual household income level climbs the level of agreement with this statement abates (85% among those with an annual household income of less than $30,000, 77% among those with annual household incomes of $30,000 to less than $60,000, and 62% among those with annual household incomes of $60,000 or more).

  Please open the attached PDF to view the factum and detailed tables.

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  For more information on this news release, please contact:
  
  Darrell Bricker
  President and C.O.O.
  Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
  (416) 324-2900