The Federal Election At Ten Days To Go

Toronto, ON - After a week that witnessed a furor on the campaign trail over a slate of new Liberal ads--with particular focus on one that attacked Stephen Harper's position on having the Canadian military more prominent in some key urban centres-- a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News suggests that in the controversy's wake, overall national voting intentions have not changed since the last sounding except, directionally, in Atlantic Canada.

However it would appear that for the first time, Stephen Harper (32%, +1 point from a Nov 29, 2004 survey) is chosen by as many Canadians for "best Prime Minister" as is the incumbent Prime Minister Paul Martin (31%, -8 points).

The poll was conducted over days of intense debate about one of twelve newly released Liberal election ads.

According to the survey, among Canadians who say they are either "absolutely certain" (68%) or "very likely" (15%) to vote on Election Day, 39% support the Conservative Party (+2 points), 29% support the Liberals (+3 points), 18% support the NDP (unchanged), 9% support the Bloc Quebecois nationally (-4 points), and 5% support the Green Party (unchanged).

Among all Canadians, 37% of voters would cast their ballot for the Conservative Party (+2 points), 29% for the Liberals (-2 points), 18% for the New Democratic Party (unchanged), and 5% for the Green Party (unchanged).

And, in Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois attract 43% of federal votes (-2 points) versus 24% for the Liberals (+1 point) and 21% for the Conservatives (+2 points).

Further, it would appear that recent campaigning by Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in Atlantic Canada has paid dividends in vote support, as the Conservatives (42%, +9 points) now directionally lead over the NDP (30%, +7 points) and the Liberals (26%, -16 points) in this region.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from January 10th to January 12th, 2006. For this survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1000 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 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:

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