On The Eve Of The Budget, Canadians Assess The Confidence Vote And Their Decided Vote

Toronto, ON - A new poll conducted for CanWest/Global by Ipsos-Reid while the defection of Conservative Belinda Stronach to Paul Martin's Liberal cabinet was taking place, and leading up to the eve of the Federal budget confidence vote, indicates that if an election were held today 34% of decided voters would cast their ballot for the Liberals (up 7 points), 28% for the Conservatives (down 3 points), 17% for the NDP (down 2 points), and 6% for the Green Party (unchanged). In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois continues to dominate with 54% (down 2 points) decided vote support - leading the Liberals (24%, up 9 points) by 30-points.

As for the budget vote scenarios and fall-out, a majority of Canadians want even a narrow budget confidence vote to decide the fate of the government, specifically:

• "If the government loses by one or two votes" - 54% feel it would be necessary to have an immediate election;
• "If the opposition and government tie the vote, and the tie is broken in favour of the government by the Speaker of the house, who is a Liberal" - 60% feel it would be acceptable for the Liberals to remain in power; and
• "If the government wins by one or two votes" - 68% feel it would be acceptable if the Liberals remain in power.

When asked whom they blame most for the problems we're having in Parliament these days, nearly half of Canadians (46%) point to "Paul Martin and the Liberal Party" while only 32% point to the "opposition parties lead by Stephen Harper and Gilles Ducceppe".

And most Canadians (57%) are of the opinion that the "Liberal party does not deserve to be re-elected and it's time for another political party to be given a chance to govern the country" (down 8 points from the 65% who said this in an April 8-10th, 2005 survey). This compares with 37% who believe the Liberals deserve to be re-elected under the leadership of Paul Martin (up 7 points).

But Canadians are divided as to whether the next election will clear the air and get the government in Ottawa back on track: Forty-six percent are confident it will compared to 52% who don't think so.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for CanWest/Global and fielded from May 16th to May 18th, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1002 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 the attached PDF to view the full factum including graphic displays and detailed tables.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

Dr.Darrell Bricker
President & COO
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900 John Wright
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900

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