Grits Thrashed In Wake Of Gomery Report

Toronto, ON - Despite Justice John Gomery's report "exonerating" Prime Minister Paul Martin in what has become known as the Quebec Sponsorship Scandal, support for his embattled party among decided voters has plummeted to a low not witnessed since May, 2005 according to the latest Ipsos Reid CanWest News Service/Global News national survey of Canadians. The poll shows that the recent Liberal lead over the Conservatives has all but evaporated, and the Bloc Quebecois now have a stronger stranglehold on Quebec denying Paul Martin any potential post Gomery ruling support momentum at "ground zero" for his party there.

And even though a majority (55%) of Canadians want to wait until after the final report of Justice Gomery, expected in February of 2006, before going to the polls, the party leaders in the House of Commons may be sorely tested by these numbers which expose a vulnerable minority Liberal government.

According to the poll national vote support for each major Federal party current sits at:

• 31% for Paul Martin and the Liberals (-7 points)
• 30% for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives (+4 points)
• 19% for Jack Layton and the NDP (+1 point)
• 5% for Jim Harris and the Green Party (unchanged)

In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois now have 52% of the Federal vote (+5 points) with the Liberals being thrashed--down a whopping 13 points to only 20%.

But the other story is in seat rich Ontario where the Conservatives (38%, +8 points) have now rebounded to neck and neck with the Liberals (38%, -4 points).

Given the national vote numbers as expressed above, if these decided voters were to hold onto these views in an election, Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party would form a minority government.

Further findings of the national poll are:

• 74% agree with the statement "there were no surprises in the Gomery Report. It pretty much confirmed what I already knew" versus 16% disagree, and 10% "don't know".
• 60% agree that "I don't think the Gomery Report will change anything meaningful about the way the Federal government does things" (-3 points from the last Ipsos Reid survey conducted in late October before the release of the Gomery Report) while 34% disagree, and 6% "don't know".
• 54% agree that "the findings of the Gomery Report show that the Liberal Party is corrupt and does not deserve to be re-elected", versus 38% who believe the government deserves to be re-elected and eight percent "don't know".
• 53% disagree with the statement that "Since Justice Gomery absolved Prime Minister Paul Martin of any blame in his report, I will not be thinking about the sponsorship scandal when I decide who to vote for in the next Federal election" compared with 40% who agree and 7% "don't know".
• 50% agree that "because of the corruption that was confirmed by the Gomery Report, the Martin Liberals have lost their moral right to govern and the opposition parties should force an immediate election"(+2 points since late October) versus 44% that disagree and 7% who "don't know".

  When it comes to the question of who Canadians think would do the best job of cleaning up the corruption uncovered by the Gomery Inquiry, slightly more choose Stephen Harper and the Conservatives (25%, +3 points since October) than choose Paul Martin and the Liberals (21%, -4 points) or Jack Layton and the NDP (21%, -4 points). In Quebec, thirty-nine percent choose Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois as the party and leader that would best clean up this corruption (+7 points in Quebec since October).

  These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from November 1st to November 2nd 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1012 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