Voters' Report Card on Out-going Mayor Al Duerr

Calgary, AB - For the past 18 years, Al Duerr has been a fixture at City Hall - first as a two-term Alderman and for the past 12 years as Mayor. This spring, Duerr announced that he was stepping back into private life, and that he would not be seeking another term as Mayor. As the Municipal Election nears and Duerr's final term comes to a close, an exclusive Ipsos-Reid CFCN/Calgary Sun survey sought Calgarians views on the departing Mayor's performance over the years and his contribution to the city.

Overall, Al Duerr leaves office with a considerable amount of "political capital" among Calgarians. Nearly nine-in-ten (87%) Calgary voters say that Duerr has done "a good job" in his 12 years as Mayor, with 44% maintaining that is performance has been "very good" overall. By comparison, only 10% of those interviewed offer any level of disapproval for Duerr's overall performance as Mayor and 3% are unsure how to rate him.

When asked to rate Duerr's performance on specific elements of the job, Calgarians give the parting Mayor the strongest marks for his ability to represent the city as a figure-head (87% saying a "good job" vs. 11% saying a "bad job" on this front), his ability to work well with his City Council colleagues (83% "good job", 6% "bad job"), and representing the City's interests with the federal and provincial governments (83% "good job", 12% "bad job"). On each of these performance areas, Al Duerr enjoys support from over seventy-percent of the City (taking into account the "net job approval", i.e. % saying "Very/Fairly Good Job" minus the % saying "Very/Fairly Bad Job". On the two remaining performance areas, Duerr garners lower job performance scores, although even here, the sitting Mayor's performance ratings are quite enviable. On the issue of "dealing with the most important issues facing the city", eight-in-ten (81%) Calgarians say the Mayor has done a good job (30% "Very Good), compared to 17% who feel Duerr has performed poorly in this area. And finally, when it comes to "listening to Calgarians", eight-in-ten (81%) potential voters give the Mayor top marks in this regard (34% offer "Very good" ratings), while 16% of those interviewed hold contrary views.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CFCN/Calgary Sun poll conducted between September 7th and 11th, 2001. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 400 adult Calgarians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population in Calgary 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 age/sex composition reflects that of the actual city population according to Statistics Canada Census data.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Marc Henry
Vice President
Ipsos-Reid
403.237.0066 (Calgary)
780.944.9164 (Edmonton)