Parents On Parenting: How Are Canada's Children Being Raised?

Toronto, Ontario - According to an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail survey, Canadian parents are conflicted when considering early childhood education issues.

Canadian parents are split as to whether the daylong school programs for 3,4 and five year olds, are a good thing -- half (47%) agree that these school programs are a good idea (23% agree somewhat, 24% agree completely), while the other half (52%) disagrees (27% disagree somewhat, 25% disagree completely). Only a very small portion (1%) say they don't know.

• Agreement that the daylong programs are good by region: Ontario (53%), Saskatchewan/Manitoba (53%), Atlantic Canada (50%), Alberta (44%), Quebec (42%), and British Columbia (37%).
• Directionally, disagreement that the daylong programs are good is higher among parents with younger children age 0-5 than among parents with children age 6-17 (51% vs. 46%).

Six in ten (57%) agree with the statement "early childhood education is most important for low-income families" (26% agree somewhat, 32% agree completely). Four in ten (41%) are of the opposite opinion (20% disagree somewhat, 21% disagree completely). The remaining 2% indicate they `don't know.'

• Seven in ten in Atlantic Canada (70%), Ontario (69%) and Saskatchewan/Manitoba (68%), agree that early childhood education is more important for low-income families, compared to six in ten in British Columbia (60%) and Alberta (57%), and three in ten in Quebec (31%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV/Globe and Mail poll conducted between February 24 and March 4, 2004. The telephone survey is based on a randomly selected sample of 648 adult parents living in Canada. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1773.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian parent 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 2001 Census data.

Please open the attached PDF to view the factum and detailed tables.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

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