OTTAWA - The latest Harris Decima Investors Group measure
of Canadian Consumer Confidence reveals:

- The overall index of Consumer Confidence in the Canadian economy rose
in the period from June to August to 86.5, the highest the index has
been in almost two years. In the United States, the index reached
65.7, a slight drop from June.

- Optimism about the near-term economic outlook in Canada continues to
grow as pessimism continues to drop sharply. The number who see good
times ahead overall in the coming year jumped to 29% from the 20%
recorded in June while 49% of respondents believed business
conditions wouldn't change much in the coming year, Meanwhile, only
15% foresaw more difficult economic times over the next 12 month
period compared to 29% in June and 59% in February of this year.

- 30% of Canadians believe they will be better off financially a year
from now, while 9% believe they will be worse off. 55% believe they
will be about the same financially a year from now. The number of
Canadians who believe they will be better off financially a year from
now is up 5 points from June where 25% believed they'd be better off.

- The number of Canadians who say they are worse off today than they
were last year, dropped slightly to 25%, from the 29% recorded in
June. Once again, people are far more likely to say they are doing
about the same financially as they were last year (61%). 12% feel
they are better off financially compared to a year ago, relatively
unchanged since June.

- Canadians continue to be more optimistic about making a major
purchase. Today, 52% believe it is a good time to make a major
purchase, while 33% feel it is a bad time to buy. These numbers
represent a slight increase in optimism from the 49%-34% split
registered in June.

- Optimism continues to grow in terms of the five year economic
outlook. Today, 58% see good times ahead in the next five years,
while 28% see bad times. In June, this split was 51%-36%.

According to Harris/Decima Senior Vice-President Jeff Walker, "The most
recent data reveals a continued upward trend in consumer confidence that we've
witnessed in the last few months. Canadians continue to grow more confident in
future of the economy in the medium term, which is driving overall confidence
upward. Confidence continues to grow at the microeconomic level, with more
Canadians believing they'll be better of personally a year from now than just
3 months ago."
"Confident consumers are spending consumers," said Bill Chornous,
Investment Strategist at Investors Group. "Consumer spending, particularly in
the United States, is an important factor in the recovery and growth of the
economy."
Each week, Harris/Decima interviews just over 1000 Canadians through
teleVox, the company's national omnibus survey. These data were gathered
August 20th through August 30th 2009 for a sample of just over 2,000
respondents. The poll's margin of error is 2.2%, 19 times out of 20.