Canadians Remain Confident in Economy Soft Landing

Toronto, ON - Despite ongoing concern about a recession among many financial analysts, an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll released today shows that expectations of a recession have yet to take hold among Canadians generally. Most Canadians (65%) expect a soft landing, that is, they expect the economy to slow down but continue to have some growth. Meanwhile, almost one in seven (13%) expect that over the next 12 months, the economy will continue to grow as strongly as it has in recent years. In contrast, only one in five (19%) say they expect that the economy will "enter into a recession".

Although the percentage of Canadians who expect a recession has increased five points since the beginning of February, this increase is largely confined to Quйbec. In Quйbec, the percentage who say they expect a recession has increased 10 points from 15 percent at the beginning of February to 25 percent now. In contrast, residents of B.C. and Saskatchewan/Manitoba are slightly more upbeat about the economy than they were a couple of months ago and residents of Ontario are essentially unchanged. Meanwhile Albertans and Atlantic Canadians are slightly less positive than they were in February.

• Younger Canadians (14%) are least likely to expect a recession, followed by older (19%) and then middle aged Canadians (24%).
• Women (17%) are less likely than men (22%) to expect a recession.
• Canadians with at least some post-secondary (16%) are less likely to say they expect a recession than those with a high school education or less (25%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll conducted between April 3rd - April 5th, 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.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice President
Public Affairs
Ipsos-Reid
(416) 324-2900