Mulroney's "Tour De Force" At Ethics Committee Sputters

Ottawa, ON - After weighing the testimony of German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney delivered before the House of Common's Ethics Committee, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of CanWest News Service and Global Television finds that just three in ten (27%) Canadians believe that Mulroney's testimony is closer to the truth. Interestingly, the same proportion (27%) considers Schreiber's testimony to be closer to the truth.

Prior to the hearings, Ipsos Reid asked Canadians whether they believed Mulroney when he said that nothing inappropriate took place between him and Karlheinz Schreiber. Only 27% of Canadians said they did. Following his testimony, it appears that Canadians have been unmoved by what Mulroney has testified, since an equal proportion (27%) now considers Mulroney's testimony to be closer to the truth.

With these two gentlemen often offering contradictory testimony, three in ten (27%) Canadians do not believe that either men have given testimony which is close to the truth, while two in ten (19%) do not know what to think about what Schreiber and Mulroney have said.

• Residents of Quebec (34%), Alberta (31%) and Ontario (27%) are more likely to believe Mulroney's testimony over Schreiber's.
• Residents of British Columbia (41%), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (28%), and Atlantic Canada (28%) are more inclined to consider Schreiber's testimony to be closer to the truth. Further, men (30%) are more likely than women (23%) to say that Schreiber's story is closer to the truth.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service/Global News and fielded from December 18 -20, 2007. For this survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1,001 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the aggregate 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 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:
Dr. Darrell Bricker
President and COO
Ipsos Reid
Public Affairs
(416) 324-2001
[email protected]

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Ipsos Reid is Canada's market intelligence leader, the country's leading provider of public opinion research, and research partner for loyalty and forecasting and modelling insights. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos Reid employs more than 600 research professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in the country, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and online panels. Ipsos Reid's marketing research and public affairs practices offer the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada, all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, Ipsos Reid offers syndicated information or custom solutions across key sectors of the Canadian economy, including consumer packaged goods, financial services, automotive, retail, and technology & telecommunications. Ipsos Reid is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

To learn more, please visit www.ipsos.ca.

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