Crime in Canada: Canadians Speak Up On What Should Be Done

Toronto, ON - According to a recent Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of CanWest News Service/Global News, Canadians most strongly believe in implementing four gang violence fighting initiatives:

• 1. Changing the laws so that committing a gun crime has a mandatory ten year sentence with no chance of parole or early release (73% strongly agree);
• 2. Forcing all young offenders charged with a gun crime to be treated as adults by the courts (71% strongly agree);
• 3. Putting in place special screening at the border to catch gun smugglers (62% strongly agree); and
• 4. On-going major police sweeps of communities where police believe gangs and guns are present (60% strongly agree).

Meanwhile, in the city of Toronto, residents share the same views of Canadians as a whole when it comes to their top four initiatives, but they also strongly believe in two other initiatives, "putting surveillance cameras in high traffic areas to aid police investigations (59% strongly agree) and "implementing an employment work training program for young people who are at risk of joining gangs" (57%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News from December 30th 2005 to January 2nd, 2006. A total of 8336 Canadian voters were surveyed via the internet, yielding results which are accurate to within 177 1.1% (19 times out of 20). The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. The data were statistically weighted to ensure that the sample's age, sex, regional and party support composition reflects that of the actual Canadian voter population. The sample was drawn from a pre-recruited panel of over 12,000 voters drawn from Ipsos Reid's internet panel.

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:

John Wright
Senior Vice-President
(416) 324-2900