Provincial Gas Tax

Toronto, ON - The results of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV poll released today show that despite high oil prices, most Canadians (57%) would rather that their provincial government keep the gas tax as is and spend the money on improving roads and highways in their province as opposed to reducing the tax to give drivers a break (42%).

• Women (48%) are more likely than men (35%) to say the gas tax should be reduced to give drivers a break.
• Younger (46%) and middle aged (40%) Canadians are more likely than older Canadians (38%) to say the tax should be reduced.
• Residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (19%) are least likely to say the tax should be reduced while Quйbecers (49%) are most likely to say the tax should be reduced.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CTV poll conducted between March 8th and March 10th, 2001. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 803 adult Canadians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.5 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.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

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