Following release of the White Paper "Shaping the Future," at a luncheon sponsored by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce on February 7, the Chamber asked its 2,100 members to complete the survey contained at the end of the White Paper. The response to this request covered 12.7% of the members, i.e., 266 respondents. Links to: A graphic presentation of these responses.

In addition to the formal questions the following demographics were asked: age, gender, industry, number of employees in the organization, division of the company and the number of years membership in the Chamber of Commerce/Board of Trade.

The following is a summary of the responses to the questions:

• Debt Reduction: Eighty percent (80%) of the members believe that debt reduction is critically important and the other 20% believe it is very important. This view has been expressed by the Chamber for several years.

• Allocation of Surplus Funds: The members clearly stated that their first priority (67.6%) for allocation of surplus funds is to reduce the debt. Their second priority (17.7%) is to reduce taxes and their third priority would be either a combination of reducing debt and reducing taxes or spending more on government programs.

• Government Spending: Eighty percent (80%) of the members were in favour of legislation to restrict government spending to the amount of income it receives per year. Twenty percent (20%) were opposed to this legislation.

• Reducing Government: Forty-five percent (45%) favour significant reductions, 40% moderate reductions and 12% only minor reductions. Sixty percent (60%) would not change their opinion if health and education were excluded from these reductions, 22% would change their opinion and 18% did not answer.

• Private/Public Partnerships: Support was generally in favour of greater private sector involvement but this support varied from one area to another. Strongest support was in the areas of school bus service (90.3%) and non-medical hospital services (87.6%). Moderate support was expressed for corrections (jails) (68.2%) and parks (60.2%) while less support (55.9%) was shown for toll roads.

• Sale of Provincial Assets: There was support for the sale of some provincial assets in order to pay down the debt. Sale of the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission received the most support, at 82.9%, followed by the loan agencies of government, at 73.9%. Weaker support was voiced for sale of provincial office buildings, at 65.6%, and the Halifax-Dartmouth bridges, at 60.9%. The Chambers' membership was clearly against the sale of Crown-owned forest land (68.9% were opposed to this sale).

• Tax Reductions: Almost 62% of members felt that reducing both business and personal taxes were equally important in stimulating investment, creating jobs and improving our competitive position. Personal tax reductions came out slightly ahead of business tax reduction when one versus the other was chosen.

• Confidence in the Government: Fairly strong confidence (59.9%) was expressed that the government will be able to maintain a balanced budget but only 45.2% were somewhat or very confident that the government will secure the future of important public services and members were even less confident (28.1% are somewhat or very confident) that the government will lower taxes.

Respondents were asked several basis demographic questions which revealed the following characteristics:

          Gender             Males                        80.1%
                             Females                      19.9%
	
          Age Group          25-34 yrs.                   12.4%
                             35-44 yrs.                   32.7%
                             45-54 yrs.                   39.1%
                             55+ yrs.                     15.8%

         Industry Group      Manufacturing                11.3%
                             Service                      52.3%
                             Technology                    7.1%
                             Transportation &
                               Communication               9.8%
                             Resources                     2.3%
                             Other                        17.3%

         Division            Executive office             51.5%
                             Finance                       9.4%
                             Marketing/business
                               development                18.0%
                             Management information
                               services                    1.9%
                             Customer service              7.9%
                             Other                        11.3%

        Number of employees   0-3                         12.4%
                             4-10                         18.4%
                            11-20                         17.3%
                            21-50                         14.3%
                            51-100                        10.5%
                            100+                          27.1%