Majority (54%) Feel P.M. Was Wrong Not To Attend Recent International AIDS Conference

Toronto, ON - A new Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of CanWest Global reports that a majority [54%] of Canadians believe that Prime Minster Stephen Harper's decision not to personally attend the Internal AIDS conference held recently in Toronto and instead tour Canada's Arctic North and to delay a planned announcement on funding for AIDS because things had become too "politicized" was "wrong to do", compared to 43% who feel that he was "right not to attend the conference and to [delay] the funding announcement".

Feelings that the Prime Minister was "wrong" to not attend run highest among residents of Quebec [61%] and Ontario [58%], younger adults (62% among those ages 18-34) and women [60%]. Views that the Prime Minister was "right" to not attend run the highest in Alberta [50%] and Saskatchewan/Manitoba [54%], and among those most likely to be over the age of 55 [51%] and men [49%].

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from August 22-24th, 2006. For this survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1002 adult Canadians was 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 Census data.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
John Wright
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900
[email protected]

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