End of an Era: For a Second Time, a Trudeau is Headed to
24 Sussex as Liberals Poised to Win Election

Toronto, ON - The end of the Harper era is nigh as Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are poised to win the election, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Global News. For the first time in Canadian history a father and a son will have been Prime Minister.

Heading into Election Day, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau are likely to receive 38% of the popular vote among decided eligible voters (up 1 point from last week), while Stephen Harper and the Conservatives would receive 31% of the vote (unchanged). Thomas Mulcair and the NDP - who were once the front-runners - would receive 22% of the vote (down 2 points), while Elizabeth May and the Green Party would receive 4% (up 2 points). Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc are set to receive 4% of the vote nationally, down 1 point (17% in Quebec). One in ten (12%) voters would either spoil their ballot/not vote (3%), or remain undecided (9%).

The final Ipsos poll of the election campaign, a blended sample of 1,001 telephone interviews and 1,502 online interviews, shows that the key to the anticipated Liberal victory is the their lead over their adversaries in all three of Canada's most-populous provinces. This will be a truly national government with seats from coast to coast.

• In Ontario, the Liberals (44%) have a twelve point lead over the Conservatives (32%), NDP (20%) and Green Party (4%).
• In the 905 region surrounding Toronto, the Liberals (47%) lead the Conservatives (38%), NDP (14%) and Greens (2%).
• In the 416, Toronto proper, the Liberals (50%) have a commanding lead over the Conservatives (25%), NDP (22%) and Greens (3%).
• In Quebec, the Liberals (31%) lead the NDP (28%), Conservatives (21%), Bloc (17%) and Green Party (3%).
• In British Columbia, the Liberals (40%) have a solid lead over the Conservatives (28%), NDP (25%) and Green Party (8%).
• In Alberta, the Tories (57%) retain their traditional advantage over the Liberals (25%), NDP (15%), and Green Party (3%).
• In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Tories (37%) and Grits (36%) are tied with the NDP (25%) and Green Party (3%) behind.
• In Atlantic Canada, the Liberals (48%) are substantially leading the Conservatives (24%), NDP (21%) and Green Party (7%).

While approval of the government's performance is relatively high for government that has been in office for nearly a decade, the desire for change appears to outweigh this approval, suggesting that the election has become a referendum on its Conservative leader. Four in ten (42%) Canadians `approve' (14% strongly/28% somewhat) of the performance of the government under the leadership of Stephen Harper, and half (51%) approve (14% strongly/37% somewhat) of its overall management of the Canadian economy, but most (67%) believe it's `time for another federal party to take over', while only one in three (33%) believe the `Harper government has done a good job and deserves re-election'.

Justin Trudeau has also solidly claimed the lead as the major party leader that voters think would make the best Prime Minister (39%), ahead of Stephen Harper (32%) and Thomas Mulcair (26%), while 3% are unsure. Even on the economy and which party and leader is best able to deal with it once elected, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals (39%) best the Harper Tories (35%) and Mulcair NDP (23%), while 2% are unsure.

Turnout, Vote Switching the Wild Card...

As is usually the case, Tory supporters appear most committed to their choice: 70% of Conservative voters say they're `absolutely certain' of their vote choice on E-Day, higher than the 61% of Liberal and 56% of NDP voters who are `absolutely certain' of their choice. If some last-minute vote switching occurs, it is likely to occur disproportionately between the NDP and Liberals:

• Among Liberal voters, 53% would choose the NDP second, while fewer would vote Conservative (16%), for some other party (16%) or for the Bloc (2%), while 13% don't know who they'd pick second.
• Among NDP voters, 48% would choose the Liberals as their second choice, while fewer would choose another party (22%), the Conservatives (9%), or the Bloc (8%). One in ten (13%) are unsure of who they would pick second.
• Among Conservative voters, 34% are unsure of who they would pick second, while 24% would choose some other party, aside from the Liberals (26%), NDP (15%) or Bloc (2%).
• Among Bloc voters, 31% would choose the NDP, followed by some other party (28%), the Liberals (12%) or Conservatives (7%), while two in ten (21%) are unsure.
• Among Green voters, the NDP (33%) has the advantage as second choice, followed by the Liberals (21%), Tories (9%), another party (4%) or Bloc (3%). Three in ten (30%) don't know who they'd pick second.

An Experiment in Predicting Who Will Actually Vote...

All of the media polls released in this election present the views of some version of eligible voters; that is, all voters who are eligible to vote. But, we know that the average turnout for the five federal elections that have happened this Millennium was just over 60%. That means that around 40% of the eligible voters in all media polls won't actually vote. The convention in Canadian media polling is to ignore turnout and to report the results for all eligible voters as the expected vote. For the most part, this has worked and most polls have come reasonably close to the final result. But, when we have a big miss (like in the last BC provincial election) our analysis suggests that this was because we didn't take into account the relationship between partisanship and turnout. Simply put, the voters for one party can be more motivated to show up than the voters of other parties.

In other jurisdictions (the US and UK to name two) where serious polling occurs, pollsters put a lot of effort into accurately predicting turnout by party. That's what this alternate scenario does - it looks at the likelihood of voters for each of the major parties to vote in this election. We do this by looking at stated likelihood of voting, voting history, and level of interest in this specific campaign. We then correlate the answers to these questions against a voter turnout of 60%, using regression modeling in an attempt to predict which voters will show up and vote. What follows is what our modeling shows about party vote under each of these scenarios. We present this information in the spirit of advancing the science of political polling in Canada and appreciate that it is both experimental and outside of the conventions of how poll results are normally reported.

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These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between October 15 and 17, 2015 on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 2,503 Canadians eligible to vote was interviewed, including 1502 interviews via the Ipsos I-Say Panel (comprising ~150,000 panelists) and non-panel sources (river sampling), and 1,001 by live-interview telephone dialing (including 40% of respondents answering by cellphone). Given Ipsos' use of river sampling and a router to match respondents who may not qualify for other surveys with one they do qualify for (as is the case with the online component of this poll), it is not possible to identify the number of respondents invited to participate in the survey, or a traditional measure of response rate. Weighting by region, education and political variables was employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos polls containing online data is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ - 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all eligible voters been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Darrell Bricker, PhD
CEO
Ipsos Global Public Affairs
(416) 324-2001
[email protected]

About Ipsos in Canada

Ipsos is Canada's market intelligence leader, the country's leading provider of public opinion research, and research partner for loyalty and forecasting and modelling insights. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos employs more than 600 research professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in the country, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and online panels. Ipsos' marketing research and public affairs practices offer the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada, all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, Ipsos offers syndicated information or custom solutions across key sectors of the Canadian economy, including consumer packaged goods, financial services, automotive, retail, and technology & telecommunications. Ipsos is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

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

About Ipsos

Ipsos is an independent market research company controlled and managed by research professionals. Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos has grown into a worldwide research group with a strong presence in all key markets. Ipsos ranks third in the global research industry.

With offices in 86 countries, Ipsos delivers insightful expertise across six research specializations: advertising, customer loyalty, marketing, media, public affairs research, and survey management.

Ipsos researchers assess market potential and interpret market trends. They develop and build brands. They help clients build long-term relationships with their customers. They test advertising and study audience responses to various media and they measure public opinion around the globe.

Ipsos has been listed on the Paris Stock Exchange since 1999 and generated global revenues of e1,669.5 ($2,218.4 million) in 2014.

Visit www.ipsos.com to learn more about Ipsos' offerings and capabilities.