Grits (34%, +1 Point) Have Minority Edge As Tory (30%, -1 Point) Ads And Media Strategy Fail To Impress

Toronto, ON - Findings from the latest CanWest News Service/Global News survey conducted by Ipsos Reid give Paul Martin and the Liberals (34%, +1 point from a December 1st Ipsos Reid survey) a minority edge lead over what would appear to be a "stalled" Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party (30%, -1 point). In fact, the survey now shows that in the crucial seat rich province of Ontario the Liberals (41%, +3 points) now hold a 7 point lead over the Conservatives (34%, -1 point).

Meanwhile, the NDP (16%, - 1 point) and the Green Party (5%, unchanged) continue to distantly trail the front-running parties. And in Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois (55%, -2 point) have more than double the federal votes than do the Liberals (26%, unchanged).

This poll notes a substantial rise in the undecided vote from last the last federal survey, having risen 6 points from 8% last week to 14% today.

What is significant about the latest poll is that despite a strategy of having leader Stephen Harper make almost daily media dominating policy announcements-- ranging from cutting the GST to giving parents daycare money to new fisheries legislation-- against a backdrop of Tory ads that currently are the only Campaign ads so far, there apparently has been no immediate payoff. At this stage a two-pronged hypothesis could be advanced:

• That this dominant exposure of Mr. Harper at the outset of the campaign may have simply done the opposite of its intentions by reminding those who voted against him and his party last time why they did so and why they might want to do the same again; or
• Voters may not be following the campaign in any detail and have simply "parked" their vote until after the debates or the New Year.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from December 6th to December 8th 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1,000 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:

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