Mississauga, ON—More than half of Canadians (54 per cent) say they are overwhelmed "almost to the point of paralysis" by the magnitude of the natural disasters this year, yet their resolve to respond with donations and government aid remains strong, according to an Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by World Vision.

Two thirds of Canadians said they gave to organizations that respond to disasters this year and the majority (89 per cent) said they will give the same amount or more in the future. Eighty-three per cent of respondents said it makes them "proud to be Canadian when the government matches donations of individual Canadians; they should do it for every major disaster."

Canadians' response to the tsunami supports these findings. More than 200,000 Canadians gave a total of $36 million through World Vision for tsunami relief last year. "Canadians may be overwhelmed by disasters, but they keep giving when they know people are in need, " said Dave Toycen, president and CEO of World Vision Canada. "This year, we have seen increased generosity when we made appeals for our development work, the fight against HIV/AIDS and other emergencies including famine in Niger and the earthquake in Pakistan."

When it comes to deciding who should handle their aid dollars, Canadians trust non-government organizations (NGOs) like World Vision to get the aid where it is needed. Eighty-one per cent of those polled said NGOs did the best job of getting relief and dollars to the people in need. By comparison, the United Nations (UN), the federal government and the Canadian military only got top marks from 30 per cent or less of respondents.

"Through this poll, Canadians are sending a clear message to politicians. Canadians want government aid money for emergencies to go through international aid agencies, especially those that stay in the affected regions for the long term," said John Wright, senior vice president of Ipsos Reid. "Seven in ten (70 per cent) say the federal government should set aside more money from the $12 billion projected surplus to give aid to agencies for disasters."

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid/World Vision Canada poll conducted from November 25th to December 4th, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1,000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ±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 weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian relief and development organization working in more than 90 countries and helping more than 80 million people each year.