Ipos-Reid Corp. is giving politicos a pre-Christmas present. The public opinion research firm is releasing a major 800-sample size poll, which was conducted between November 24 and 30, identifying the opportunities and vulnerabilities of the leaders and parties in the next provincial election. Some of those results will be broadcast tonight on BCTV. Others will be published in tomorrow morning's Vancouver Sun. And a more detailed analysis will be available during Ipsos-Reid's breakfast presentation at the Marriot Vancouver Pinnacle Hotel. In an interview with Public Eye, Ipsos-Reid public affairs vice-president Kyle Braid, not surprisingly, declined to give specifics on the poll results. But he did talk about some of the questions the firm asked British Columbians.

According to Mr. Braid, in addition to the usual voter confidence skill testing questions, Ipsos-Reid "asked about who's going to be the best premier. We asked about whether the public thinks that Gordon Campbell and Carole James will be an asset or a liability in the next election campaign. We asked about who the public thinks in the next mandate will be better to deal with a whole range of issues, ranging from healthcare and education to social services."

"We also asked about the economy. We asked about whether people think the Liberals deserve to be re-elected again. And we asked about the public likelihood of the public supporting all three major parties in the next election so that we can start to figure out the hard support versus the hard support versus the potential support."

Mr. Braid then added, "We've got a whole bunch of other specific questions around things like Carole James' and experience, whether the Liberals are mean-spirited...What we did is we sat down and figured out what the things the NDP is likely to say in this campaign and what are the messages the Liberals are likely to communicate. So we tested those kinds of things."

BCTV legislative bureau chief Keith Baldrey and Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer will also be on hand during the breakfast to make their election predictions.