Federal Liberals Reach 40% For First Time Since May 2004

Toronto, ON - On the heels of a narrowly avoided vote of non-confidence in The House Of Commons and subsequent snap election, a new Ipsos-Reid/CTV/The Globe and Mail survey shows that the Federal Liberal Party has cracked the 39% ceiling that has eluded them since May 2004 and now have a comfortable lead over their nearest rivals the Conservatives.

According to the survey, conducted over the nights leading up to and including the show-down in the House of Commons, 40% of decided voters in Canada would cast their support for the federal Liberal Party - this represents an overall 3 point climb in support from the actual percentage of popular vote the Liberals received when they were elected to a minority government in the June 28th, 2004 election (37%) and is the highest level achieved by the party since a May 13th, 2004 survey. As the federal Liberal Party has been making gains the Conservative Party has slipped and now garner the support of only 25% of the decided vote in Canada - a drop of 5 points from 30% this past election.

The federal New Democratic Party (17%, up 1 point from 16%) and the Green Party (6%, up 2 points from 4%) have held steady nationally since the last election, while the Bloc Quebecois has lost a small percentage of their decided vote support at the national level (9%, down 3 points from 12%).

In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois has experienced a sharp drop-off in support since the federal election as they now have the support of 36% of decided voters in this province (down 13 points from 49%). The Liberals (39%, up 5 points from 34%) and the New Democratic Party (11%, up 6 points from 5%) have moved in to fill this federal political vacuum in Quebec and have made modest gains. The Conservatives, however, continue to make little noise in this region and barely register on the federal landscape (5%, down 4 points from 9%).

A very small portion of Canadians (4%) would vote for some "other" party.

And among all Canadians, 11% are undecided or refused to say whom they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow.

In the regions:

• The federal Liberal Party has their highest levels of support in Atlantic Canada (54%), followed by Ontario (42%), British Columbia (41%), Quebec (39%) Saskatchewan/Manitoba (38%), and Alberta (30%).

• The Conservative Party has their highest levels of support in Alberta (52%), followed by Saskatchewan/Manitoba (38%), Atlantic Canada (29%), Ontario (27%), and British Columbia (24%).

• The New Democratic Party has their highest levels of support in British Columbia (22%), Ontario (21%), Saskatchewan/Manitoba (17%), Quebec (11%), Atlantic Canada (10%) and Alberta (9%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/ CTV/The Globe And Mail poll conducted from October 5th to October 7th, 2004. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1001 adult Canadians were interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.1 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 regions and for other sub-groupings 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:

Darrell Bricker, Ph.D
President & C.O.O
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900