MAJORITY (85%) SUPPORT MAKING CHANGES TO CREATE A JOINT NORTH AMERICAN SECURITY PERIMETER

Toronto, ONTARIO - An Ipsos-Reid /Globe & Mail /CTV poll released today indicates that Canadians are strongly supportive of making changes to immigration and border security operations and requirements in order to create a joint North American security perimeter.

Further, the findings indicate that 70 percent of Canadians support joint border posts staffed by Canada and US officials that would be created, instead of the separate Canadian and U.S. posts that exist today, and 90 percent believe that landed immigrants should require a photo ID card similar to the American Green Card.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Globe & Mail / CTV conducted between September 25th and 27th 2001. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,000 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 adult Canadian population according to the 1996 Census data.

Like other findings from the poll, there are very minor regional and socio-demographic differences on almost all of the measures tested. If there are any broad based observations that can be made in the findings they are that those in British Columbia are slightly more muted than the other provinces in their response to specific potential initiatives, whereas those from Alberta are likely to be consistently higher in all responses. As well, in most cases, middle aged and older respondents are more likely to favour specific initiatives than those who are younger. Men are more likely than women to give stronger support. The specific initiatives tested, and then ranked in order of acceptance, are as follows:

• Landed immigrants in Canada would require a photo-ID card similar to the American Green Card -- 90 percent agree with this initiative (70% strongly), 9 percent disagree;
• New technology and systems would be used to speed up tractor-trailer traffic at the Canada-U.S. border - 87 percent agree with this initiative (53% strongly), 11 percent disagree;
• Create common entry controls for visitors to Canada and the U.S. (Noting that today there are major differences between how Canada and the U.S. treat undocumented travelers, refugee claimants and illegal immigrants) - 81 percent agree with this initiative (54% strongly), 17 percent disagree;
• The list of countries from which visitors require visas would be the same for the U.S. and Canada (noting that currently they are different) - 75 percent agree with this initiative (49% strongly), 22 percent disagree;
• Canada would agree to forward, in advance, the detailed passenger lists to U.S. authorities for air flights that begin and Canada and end in the United States (noting that in the past, Canada has refused to do this because they say it violates Canadian privacy laws) - 71 percent agree with this initiative (43% strongly), 28 percent disagree;
• Joint border posts staffed by Canada and U.S. officials would be created instead of the separate Canadian and American posts that exist today (noting that at present, some U.S. border authorities carry weapons and the Canadian border authorities do not) - 70 percent agree with this initiative (44% strongly), 28 percent disagree.

  Overall, 85 percent (58% strongly) support Canada making the types of changes (noted above) that are required to create a joint North American security perimeter.

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  For more information on this news release, please contact:
  Darrell Bricker
  President and COO
  Public Affairs
  Ipsos-Reid
  (416) 324-2900
  

  Darrell Bricker