A MAJORITY OF CANADIANS (55%) SAY THEY HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE STOCK MARKET AND WOULD RATHER INVEST IN OTHER THINGS

Toronto, ONTARIO - As President George Bush took to the podium today to deal with corporate financial irregularities, a new Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll indicates that a majority of Canadians (55%) say they have lost confidence in the stock market and would rather put their money into other things such as real estate or gold.

Further, of those who currently invest in publicly traded companies (52% of Canadians)--either directly, through mutual funds or RRSPs--47% of those people indicate that they have lost confidence in the stock market and would rather put their money into other things. Of those who have lost confidence in the stock market and have made a change like this in the last two months 12% have stocks in publicly traded companies.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll conducted between July 3rd and July 7th, 2002. 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 Canadian population according to the 1996 Census data.

With the recent backdrop of numerous reports of accounting irregularities by large firms such as Enron and Worldcom during the past months, over half of Canadians (55%) say that they have lost confidence in the stock market and would rather put their money into other things such as real estate or gold.

• Of the 52% of Canadians who do currently own publicly traded stocks half (47%) say they would rather put their money into other things such as real estate or gold. Comparatively, of the 47% who do not invest in publicly traded stocks six in ten (64%) have lost confidence in the market due to recent revelations in the United States.
• Those living in both coastal regions of the country are most likely to have lost confidence in the stock market, with six in ten residents of Atlantic Canada (65%) and British Columbia (61%) agreeing with the statement. Just under half of those in the Saskatchewan/Manitoba (48%) and Alberta (47%) feel the same.
• Younger Canadians (18-34; 49%) are less likely than middle aged (35-54; 59%) and older (55+; 56%)Canadians to have lost confidence in the market.
• Wealthier ($60,000+; 47%) and higher educated (University; 46%) Canadians are less likely to have lost confidence than those with lower income (

  To view the complete release and tables, please open the attached PDF.

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