Federal Political Scene Late April 2001

Toronto, ON - A new Ipsos-Reid/Globe and Mail/CTV poll released today shows that with the ongoing turmoil surrounding the Canadian Alliance, its support is in a tailspin. As Stockwell Day struggles to hold on to his leadership of the party, support for the Alliance has fallen 6 points over the last month (from 19% in March 2001 to 13% now) and is now 12 points lower than the share of the popular vote the party received during the fall election (25%).

Regionally, the picture is much bleaker. Since the election, support for the Alliance has slipped in its own backyard, with the largest drop (24 points) coming in B.C. (falling from 49% to 25%). In Alberta, the story is similar with the Alliance falling 20 points from 59 percent on election day to 39 percent today. And in Saskatchewan/Manitoba the Alliance has fallen 23 points since the election (from 39% to 16%).

In Ontario, where the Alliance had hoped to make gains, support has plummeted. Since the last poll, in March 2001, their support has fallen almost in half (from 18% to 10%) and is currently less than half of what it was on election day when the party received 24 percent of the vote.

Furthermore, the Alliance is now 2 points behind their right-wing rival, the Progressive Conservatives, who currently sit at 15 percent (3 points higher than their election day results). Support for the Alliance has not lagged behind support for the Conservatives since March 2000 when Alliance support stood at 13 percent and Conservative support stood at 14 percent.

The Liberals and the NDP have been the main beneficiaries of the drop in support for the Alliance. Liberal support has increased slightly (1 point - within the margin of error) since March 2001 and now stands at 49 percent - 8 points above the support they received on election day. Despite recent slides, support for the NDP is up 4 points to 11 percent - 2 points higher than their election result. Support for the Bloc Quйbecois (36%) has remained stable since March and support for "other parties" has risen 1 point to 3 percent.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Globe and Mail/CTV poll conducted between April 24th and April 26th, 2001. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,003 adult Canadians. 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 statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 1996 Census data.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice President
Public Affairs
Ipsos-Reid
(416) 324-2900