Decision Canada: The Issue Agenda For Canadians

Toronto, ON -As the campaign unfolds a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News identifies the issues which are attaching themselves to the different parties, issue priorities among voters and which issues may or may not be on the agenda of our political leaders but are certainly on the minds of voters.

According to the survey, healthcare (29%, -1 point from a May 2004 survey) tops the list as the most important election issue volunteered by Canadians. Perhaps surprisingly, as the Gomery Report has so dominated the focus of Canadians for many months, the second place issue of corruption (12%) trails distantly.

After volunteering what they feel is the most important issue in this election, Canadians were asked a follow-up question as to which party and leader they think would do the best job of dealing with this issue if elected. Slightly more Canadians choose Paul Martin and the Liberals (30%) as the party and leader most capable of dealing with their most important election issue than choose Stephen Harper and the Conservatives (28%).

Further, Canadians were also asked to consider, if elected, which party and leader they think would do the best job of dealing with a list of specific federal government responsibilities:

• Paul Martin and the Liberals are the strongly favoured party and leader when it comes to "keeping Canada together" (48%), "representing Canada in world affairs" (47%) and "managing the economy" (41%);
• Stephen Harper and the Conservatives win big when it comes to "running a scandal-free and ethical government" (30%) and "keeping their promises" (28%); and
• Jack Layton and the NDP score strongest when it comes to "protecting the environment" (38%) and "understanding the needs of young people" (30%).

Tracking these scores from a survey conducted in May of 2004 shows that Paul Martin and the Liberals are down when it comes to almost federal government responsibilities asked about, while in contrast, the Conservatives and the NDP are up at least somewhat in all of these areas. Lastly, Canadians were asked to volunteer an issue that they feel might be part of the `the lost agenda' - meaning an issue that keeps them up at night or is one they want politicians to talk about and they never seem to do.

Healthcare (9%) tops the list of `the lost agenda' - signalling that while healthcare is a high-profile issue in this election, many Canadians still feel there is not enough discussion about this issue from the party leaders. Tied for second in this list are "social programs" and "protecting the environment" (both at 7%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from November 29th to December 1st 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 2,450 adult Canadians were interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the aggregate results are considered accurate to within 1772.0 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 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
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900