Finance Minister Flaherty's Budget Bats In Big Score For Conservatives

Toronto, ON -Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's first federal budget can be chalked up as a homerun for Stephen Harper and the governing Conservative Party --having delivered a score for the Tories in the crucial battleground of Quebec.

According to the new Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of CanWest News Service/Global News:

• Half (49%) of Canadians indicate that they think this is a "good" budget --nearly doubling the percentage who say it is a "bad" (26%) budget (resulting in a positive gap score of +23 points);
• 44% feel the budget will "personally help them" versus just 22% who feel it will "personally hurt them" (gap score of +22 points); and
• 42% indicate this budget "makes them more likely to vote for the Conservatives" (35% say it makes them less likely to vote Conservative).

Meanwhile approval for the Conservatives remains stable nationally at 60% (-2 points) and a further 59% are of the opinion that the current Conservative government has Canada on the "right track".

But within these numbers there is a compelling story in the province of Quebec, where the Conservatives have made very positive in-roads with their first budget. Specifically residents of Quebec:

• Provide the most positive reviews of the budget (with a gap score of +40 points when it comes to "good" vs. "bad" budget measures);
• Are second only to residents of Alberta when asked whether they feel this budget will help or hurt them (gap score of +31 points); and
• Essentially tie with residents of Alberta atop the country when it comes to government approval level (70%, +2 points) and "right track" (69%) measures.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from May 2nd to May 4th, 2006. For this survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1001 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 factum and detailed tables.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

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