Canadian Political Polls

[Saturn]

Partly, of course, your economy follows the US economy, which, with a brief hiccup from late 1989 to early 1991 has been on a tear since the end of 1982, and with little inflation. Our deficit went down as well, went up briefly and now is down again.

How is Canada not going back to having a deficit something that the U.S. can take credit for?

The U.S. deficit may be down from what it was but it will be there for years to come according to Congress and financial experts.

I see you ignored the Iraq question altogether. The Conservatives would have had Canada in Iraq and probably would have sent their party down in flames for another 10 years had they done so.

It's never too late for the Conservatives to put us in a deficit position. Flaherty and co. never registered a surplus in Ontario despite the big boom of the late 90s, barely managed to balance their budget by selling public assets and piled up the debt as soon as their rosy projections of 4% growth didn't materialize and their plan to sell off Ontario hydro in full failed. Their "common sense revolution" simply consisted of cutting services and investment, handing out public assets to friends for nothing and keeping the voters happy by giving them lots beer and popcorn money and spending $100 million on advertising how their government is putting kids first. The result was 30% high-school dropout rate, decaying infrastructure, and piles of debt. Ya, and they went from majority to 20% of the seats in the legislature. I doubt that Flaherty has leaned his lesson and I will be surprised if he doesn't squander the federal surplus in a similar fashion (given the time to do it of course).

[Vancouver King]

That makes no sense. The poll shows a 6% drop, +/- 6%, 19/20. That means the margin of error is between a 0% drop (a 5% chance of that being true) or a 12% drop (5% chance of that being true). The most likely outcome is the poll's result.

There is absolutely no indictation from that poll that the Liberals have done anything but dropped considerably in support.

Seriously, your lack of statistics here is shocking... what exactly do they teach at those schools in the East?

Dude, this is just sad and/or funny. A 95% confidence interval simply means that there is a 95% probability that the true mean lies in the interval. So, there is 95% prob that at the time of the first poll support for the Liberals was somewhere between 38 and 50% and at the time of the second poll it was somewhere between 32 and 44%. The two CI overlap substantially, so there is no evidence that the means actually differ or that support for the Liberals has changed. On top of that these polls suffer from around 80% non-response and respondents are not necessarily honest about their intentions, making the margin of error even larger. My training in statistics is much stronger than yours and no statistician would claim that there is a change in Liberal support based on this poll. What you wrote above make no sense.

Oh, I see. You are probably assuming that the 44% in the previous poll WAS the true mean. That's a bad assumption. 44% +-6% simply means that at the time the previous poll was done, the proportion of people who would have answered the poll would have claimed and that they would vote Liberal was somewhere between 38% and 50% with 95% probability.

I wouldn't stake my life on it Geoffrey, but I think you have just been handed your ass.

[geoffrey]

Dude, this is just sad and/or funny. A 95% confidence interval simply means that there is a 95% probability that the true mean lies in the interval. So, there is 95% prob that at the time of the first poll support for the Liberals was somewhere between 38 and 50% and at the time of the second poll it was somewhere between 32 and 44%. The two CI overlap substantially, so there is no evidence that the means actually differ or that support for the Liberals has changed. On top of that these polls suffer from around 80% non-response and respondents are not necessarily honest about their intentions, making the margin of error even larger. My training in statistics is much stronger than yours and no statistician would claim that there is a change in Liberal support based on this poll. What you wrote above make no sense.

Oh, I see. You are probably assuming that the 44% in the previous poll WAS the true mean. That's a bad assumption. 44% +-6% simply means that at the time the previous poll was done, the proportion of people who would have answered the poll would have claimed and that they would vote Liberal was somewhere between 38% and 50% with 95% probability.

That's ridiculous. You know damn well that the most likely mean is the statistic provided by the survey. Using your argument that Liberal support could have gone up 6%, I could come back with the response that their support could have dropped 20%, it's equally as foolish.

Anyways, oh wise and knowing guru, I'm going to waste my time on you here...

If you find the confidence interval at 95%, you find that the actual difference between the two samples of Liberal support is normal distribution between a 2.39% gain and a 14.39% loss, taking in account the confidence intervals of the sampled means. The most statistically possible outcome is a loss of support of..... you guessed it, 6%.

Here is my math: http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8653/statsuu0.jpg

Don't try to put one over our heads to push some kind of political point. The Liberals are likely down 6% in Ontario compared to the original poll, regardless of what you think is the situation.

I wouldn't stake my life on it Geoffrey, but I think you have just been handed your ass.

Nope. Good thing you didn't stake your life on it. I'd hate to have to collect.

[Catchme]

Now, the CPC are down 7% in the west, and they have no ability to gain more seats in ON or PQ, as discussed and displayed prior in this forum. Also shown is the fact they will lose 3 seats if the 12% decline holds, with another potential loss of 2 seats in the Atlantic for a total of 5 seat losses, so far examined.

Manitoba with a 7% decrease in CPC support:

CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboia 10.6% It could be a close race if the Libs 5% increase and the CPCs 7% decrease is there

Kildonan—St. Paul 9.7% It could be a close race and seriously up for contention if the Libs 5% increase and the CPCs 7% decrease is there

Winnipeg South/Winnipeg-Sud 0,03% This seat will be lost if the 7% decline is there which most likely with that small of a spread it is in part.

So 1 the CPC are looking at a 1 seat loss in Manitoba

Saskatchewan here the CPC with there 7% decline are in contention with the NDP and their 1% increase in severals areas and with the Liberals in others.

Palliser 9.9% This seat could be up for grabs and in contention with the NDP with a 7% CPC decrease and a 1% NDP increase. But still favours the CPC

ReginaQu'Appelle 8.8% This seat could seriously be up for grabs and in contention with the NDP with a 7% CPC decrease and a 1% NDP increase. Particularily if Nystrom runs again.

SaskatoonRosetownBiggar 6.6% This seat would be lost with a 7% CPC decline and a NDP 1% increcrease

So the CPC would be looking at a 1seat loss in Saskatchewan with their 7% decline and a potential fight in 2 other ridings.

Alberta

Here the CPC are pretty solid so a 7% decrease would not be too hurtful other than:

Edmonton Centre/Edmonton-Centre 6.3% This seat would be lost if the decline of 7% was here and the Liberals 5% western increase was as well.

Edmonton—Strathcona 9.2% This seat could be up for grabs and in contention with the NDP, with a 7% CPC decrease and a 1% NDP increase. But still favours the CPC if Jaffer remains in favour that is.

So, the CPC would lose 1 seat in AB and 1 more would be up for grabs with the NDP.

BC

Now here if the CPC have a 7% decline, the NDP a 1% increase and the Liberals a 5% increase there would be more changes in seats lost for the CPC

Fleetwood—Port Kells 1.9% This seat would be lost to the CPC and would be a fight between the Libs and NDP

KamloopsThompson—Cariboo 8.5% This seat would be up for serious contention with the NDP.

NanaimoAlberni 9.1% This seat would be up for serious contention with the NDP.

Pitt MeadowsMaple RidgeMission 5.2% This seat would be lost to the CPC with their 7% decline and the NDPs 1% increase.

SaanichGulf Islands 10.6% This seat would be up for serious contention with the NDP. Particularly, if they do not believe the CPC are serious about the environment.

Vancouver Kingsway This seat is already lost to the CPC. They voted Liberal and Emmerson walked.

So, there is a 3 seat loss in BC to the NDP and a serious potential for 3 more losses 2 more loss to the NDP and another will go either NDP or Liberal.

Overview of CPC seat losses across Canada:

Atlantic - 3 seat losses for sure potential for 2 more seat losses

West - 6 seat losses for sure and potential for 6 more seat losses.

No CPC gains in ON or PQ.

Total 9 seat losses for the CPC with serious potential for 8 more if we went into an election call shortly.

This means the CPC would have at most 113 seats, with a realistic potential of having only 104 seats.

Therefore the minority government would change hands to the Liberals as they have potential to at least pick up 5 seats across Canada excluding PQ, and the Liberals have potential to pick up at least 2 more seats in PQ.

This SES poll does not bode well for the CPC's current course of actions.

I agree with those predictions CatchMe.

Remember, I'm not really much of a CPC advocate anymore, I don't like alot of Harper's policies... I just happen to think the Liberals are far worse and completely out of touch with the West in Canada. I'm not out to be a partisan, personally, I could care less who wins, we get the same shit in Alberta either way. I do, however, think it would be good for the Liberals to get their asses handed to them in Ontario... make them question their poor choice of leader.

Thanks geoffery, I find it interesting to see how polls reflect so much. Particularily SES. However, I really should get to know the personalities back east, so I could know where public opinion lay. As that is important, maybe I will branch out. But on that, I do know public opinuion and one MP back east, hurray, clicking my heels Peter MacKay is toast.

Now could you explain to me how could the CPC possibly be in touch more with the west than the NDP, or indeed the Liberals? They have done nothing here in BC to show they are in touch with us. You say they have done nothing in AB, the "west" clearly isn't happy with Harper.

You would never know we had a CPC MP for our riding even. We get pretty much ignored but that's what his supporters want so...

Truthfully, what do you see Harper doing that could possibly turn this quite obvious decline around?

And what do you see as fostering it?

[geoffrey]

Truthfully, what do you see Harper doing that could possibly turn this quite obvious decline around?

Nothing, he takes 28 Alberta seats for granted. A couple lost in BC is just collateral damage.

And what do you see as fostering it?

A desire to win Quebec. You see, I'm a bit of a provincial autonomy supporter... perhaps a separatist, but hopefully not. I don't think Canada can be governed as a nation. The Liberals win by controlling the GTA, Vancouver, Montreal and a handful of other ridings, and adding a few suburban folks to gain their minority or majority status.

The CPC then attacks their ignorance of the west (rightfully so), so everyone out here votes CPC.

The Liberals then screw up big, steal alot of cash, and those suburban votes go from the LPC to the CPC. The CPC gains a minority. Then they go "hmmm... how to win a majority?" Quebec is up for grabs!

So now knowing the Liberals don't stand a snowball's chance in hell in Alberta, they pander Alberta's wealth and interests to Quebec (new equalisation in talks, environmental controls, ect. ect.).

The hope is that Quebec votes enough MP's in to gain a majority before Alberta realises it's being screwed (Alberta can turn on a party in a heartbeat, look at 1993).

Quebec and Alberta are in some ways the most opposed provinces, one is individualist, one is socialist. But the one thing we do share is a desire of less Ottawa in the way we do things. It's make us both compatible with a Conservative (in Canadian terms) ideology. At least temporarily.

But the line between playing to both the West and Quebec is very fine, and unforutnately I think Harper is falling too close to the Quebec side for it to be a sustainable alliance. You can win a majority without Ontario... without more than 40-50 seats in Ontario... but it's not easy. Harper's trying to do it. I think he could even possibly get one out of it, before it crumbles.

You see, Alberta has no alternative. The party of the NEP will never elect a member in Calgary again IMO, hasn't for 40 years... and the NDP??? You've actually got to be kidding. So until Reform II brews up, Alberta votes CPC, without hesitation.

But like Mulroney, he'll take one step too close to Quebec and the West will turn on him... destroy him really.

Alberta is self-interested to the extreme... we really don't care what happens outside Alberta as it honestly won't affect us. Obviously Quebec cares, they need our moola, as does the East. But if Ottawa isn't in our favour, and our favour alone, we won't vote for that party. We are the ultimate opposition province, we hate being in government in Ottawa.

--

What the CPC has to offer to BC? The seats the Conservatives win in BC are generally wealthy rich areas or retirement zones for Albertans. Anyone that's looking for a tax break. You don't see any CPC MP's in ethnic areas in BC.

[Saturn]

If you find the confidence interval at 95%, you find that the actual difference between the two samples of Liberal support is normal distribution between a 2.39% gain and a 14.39% loss, taking in account the confidence intervals of the sampled means. The most statistically possible outcome is a loss of support of..... you guessed it, 6%.

Nice calculations but your interpretation is incorrect. Your CI contains 0, which means that you cannot reject the hypothesis that there is no change in support for the Liberals at the 95% confidence level. I also told you that in a poll with 80% nonresponse rate, the actual error is much larger than the sampling error. Do your calculations on the Leger poll of 1,500 showing 38% CPC support and the SES poll of 1,000 showing 33% CPC support and you'll reject that the two means are the same at the 98+% confidence level. Thus, it's far more statistically possible (in your own words) that the difference between CPC support and CPC support is 5%. Not bloody likely.

[Saturn]

I think that counting seats in Ontario that will go Conservative based on a bad poll is very premature but I do agree with the following analysis. Very well put.

The hope is that Quebec votes enough MP's in to gain a majority before Alberta realises it's being screwed (Alberta can turn on a party in a heartbeat, look at 1993).

Quebec and Alberta are in some ways the most opposed provinces, one is individualist, one is socialist. But the one thing we do share is a desire of less Ottawa in the way we do things. It's make us both compatible with a Conservative (in Canadian terms) ideology. At least temporarily.

But the line between playing to both the West and Quebec is very fine, and unforutnately I think Harper is falling too close to the Quebec side for it to be a sustainable alliance. You can win a majority without Ontario... without more than 40-50 seats in Ontario... but it's not easy. Harper's trying to do it. I think he could even possibly get one out of it, before it crumbles.

You see, Alberta has no alternative. The party of the NEP will never elect a member in Calgary again IMO, hasn't for 40 years... and the NDP??? You've actually got to be kidding. So until Reform II brews up, Alberta votes CPC, without hesitation.

But like Mulroney, he'll take one step too close to Quebec and the West will turn on him... destroy him really.

Alberta is self-interested to the extreme... we really don't care what happens outside Alberta as it honestly won't affect us. Obviously Quebec cares, they need our moola, as does the East. But if Ottawa isn't in our favour, and our favour alone, we won't vote for that party. We are the ultimate opposition province, we hate being in government in Ottawa.

Unlike Mulroney though, Harper has a couple of things working in his favour. For one Harper seems to be on much better terms with the media bosses than Mulroney was (media is of course the most powerful tool in swaying public opinion) and Harper is much bolder in campaigning with entirely different messages in different parts of Canada than Mulroney was. The French media telling Quebeckers that Harper would fix the fiscal imbalance (ie give them more money at the expense of ROC) went unnoticed by the ROC. Even the CPC slogans were entirely different in English and French.

[geoffrey]

Nice calculations but your interpretation is incorrect. Your CI contains 0, which means that you cannot reject the hypothesis that there is no change in support for the Liberals at the 95% confidence level. I also told you that in a poll with 80% nonresponse rate, the actual error is much larger than the sampling error. Do your calculations on the Leger poll of 1,500 showing 38% CPC support and the SES poll of 1,000 showing 33% CPC support and you'll reject that the two means are the same at the 98+% confidence level. Thus, it's far more statistically possible (in your own words) that the difference between CPC support and CPC support is 5%. Not bloody likely.

I realise that I cannot reject the 0 change, but it's also highly improbable that 0 is the correct mean. Like I said, it's equally probably that their support dropped 12%.

At 98%, which you believe is reasonable for comparing the two CPC polling numbers between Leger and SES, I can reject any hypothesis that there was no change or any hypothesis that the Liberals gained.

As well, looking at the two polls (Leger and SES), we can't determine a more accurate drop in support since Leger doesn't have a comparable starting point to SES. So that's sort of inconvenient. I'll see if I can track down Legers Nov poll and I'll see what we get for a confidence interval between the 4 samples (SES/Leger between the 4 months). Unfortunately, looking at the graph provided by Leger, it may work in my favour that way.

I don't see why the actual error would be larger than the sampling error. Are you suggesting their is a basis towards one party or another for poll respondents?

I think the bigger area to criticise political polls on would be actual voters compared to 'wanna-be' voters.

So really, following your logic, we should just scrap the whole deal and pretend polls don't even exist?

I like it.

Unlike Mulroney though, Harper has a couple of things working in his favour. For one Harper seems to be on much better terms with the media bosses than Mulroney was (media is of course the most powerful tool in swaying public opinion) and Harper is much bolder in campaigning with entirely different messages in different parts of Canada than Mulroney was. The French media telling Quebeckers that Harper would fix the fiscal imbalance (ie give them more money at the expense of ROC) went unnoticed by the ROC. Even the CPC slogans were entirely different in English and French.

I think English Canada is starting to catch on though, especially in Alberta.

I would disagree that Harper gets a good ride by the media. I was watching the leader on CBC's the National a couple nights back, and my favourite extremely pro-Conservative reporter Keith Boag , was making a comment about "Harper can't act on global warming, because he's from Calgary, and we know what that means..."

Like what the hell is that?

I'm a little shakey with some media bias towards Harper. With the bosses Harper may agree, but the journalists and Harper do not get along one bit. Editorial control is weaker in a time of faster deadlines and less facts.

[Saturn]

I realise that I cannot reject the 0 change, but it's also highly improbable that 0 is the correct mean. Like I said, it's equally probably that their support dropped 12%.

It not nearly as highly improbable as you imagine. A difference becomes significant only at the 20% level.

At 98%, which you believe is reasonable for comparing the two CPC polling numbers between Leger and SES, I can reject any hypothesis that there was no change or any hypothesis that the Liberals gained.

I was merely pointing out that comparing support for the CPC from the two surveys shows a significant difference at the 2% level. That's a highly unlikely result (given that the two surveys are measuring the same mean over roughly the same time). Using the same methodology you employed earlier should lead you to conclude that a drop in CPC support over those 3-4 days is far more certain than the above "drop" in Liberal support in Ontario (which you are so convinced of).

I don't see why the actual error would be larger than the sampling error. Are you suggesting their is a basis towards one party or another for poll respondents?

Yes. In any survey the sampling error is the minimum error (i.e. the lower bound). Then come in the various non-sampling errors - non-response (typically the largest, often exceeding the sampling error), measurement, etc. Voting intention polls suffer enormous non-response - luckily it's often close to missing completely at random, but ignoring it still results in a substantial underestimate of total error. In a perfect world, where only sampling errors exist, two typical voting intention polls measuring the same means over roughly the same time should show a significant difference at the 5% level only about 5% of the time. But look at the numbers and you'll see that significant differences occur far more often than that. A change in CPC or LPC support of 4+% or in third party support of 3+% is significant at the 5% level. Such changes between polls released in a period of a few days occur about half the time, not just 5% of the time. The methodology behind the polls is the same, so this contradiction can only be explained by non-response bias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Canadian...n#Opinion_polls

I think the bigger area to criticise political polls on would be actual voters compared to 'wanna-be' voters.

That's yet another source of bias that is unaccounted for by simply reporting the sampling error.

So really, following your logic, we should just scrap the whole deal and pretend polls don't even exist?

I like it.

Give me 5 polls that show a drop in support for this party or that party over the same period and I'll be far more likely to agree that there is an actual drop. Give me one poll and it doesn't mean a thing to me. Overall, voting intention polling is more of a fad that's given far more importance than it deserves. I guess polls make nice headlines and sell papers.

I think English Canada is starting to catch on though, especially in Alberta.

And then the whole Mulroney/Reform story will repeat all over again. Harper needs one term to achieve his goals and then he can happily retire from politics to sit on the boards of 20 corps and to play golf.

I would disagree that Harper gets a good ride by the media. I was watching the leader on CBC's the National a couple nights back, and my favourite extremely pro-Conservative reporter Keith Boag , was making a comment about "Harper can't act on global warming, because he's from Calgary, and we know what that means..."

Like what the hell is that?

At the same time Rex Murphy wills the CBC TV and radio waves with praise for Harper and Larry Zolf worships him like some sort of deity on the CBC website.

I'm a little shakey with some media bias towards Harper. With the bosses Harper may agree, but the journalists and Harper do not get along one bit. Editorial control is weaker in a time of faster deadlines and less facts.

Don't worry, the Aspers run an extremely tight ship. The CanWest outlet is squarely behind Harper. The rest are coming around.

[geoffrey]

And then the whole Mulroney/Reform story will repeat all over again. Harper needs one term to achieve his goals and then he can happily retire from politics to sit on the boards of 20 corps and to play golf.

I know I would.

At the same time Rex Murphy wills the CBC TV and radio waves with praise for Harper and Larry Zolf worships him like some sort of deity on the CBC website.

The difference is that everyone knows Murphy is a little nuts (he is a Liberal in all honesty, he ran as one a few times). People think Boag is a respectable journalist.

Don't worry, the Aspers run an extremely tight ship. The CanWest outlet is squarely behind Harper. The rest are coming around.

CanWest is a safe bet most days, but occassional a rogue slips out. BGM isn't behind him at all... the Star and the Globe are not much either... the Star being actually anti-Harper where as I'd describe the Globe as just 'Liberal friendly most days.'

The Globe has an enourmous business audience. They give the stories and spin them the way the business community likes to see.

[jdobbin]

Quebec Liberals still lead in a new poll.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/20...13/qc-poll.html

The Quebec Liberal Party has 36 per cent of popular support, compared to 31 per cent for the PQ and 21 per cent for l'Action Démocratique du Québec, the Léger Marketing survey says.

Left-wing party Québec Solidaire and the Green Party garnered five per cent support each, says the survey commissioned by the Montreal Gazette, the Journal de Montréal and TVA.

The polls also said that health, not environment, came first as an issue for Quebec.

I wonder if we will see money from the feds kicked into some major health spending to help continue boosting the Liberals in Quebec.

[Catchme]

The Decima survey, provided to The Canadian Press,

Liberals – 33 per cent

CPC - 32 per cent – which is within the 3.1 percentage point margin of error.

NDP - 15 per cent,

Bloc Quebecois - 9

Green party - 8

The poll suggests the Liberal lead in Ontario has shrunk to four percentage points, compared with an 18-point gap at the start of the month.

But the margin of error is greater on the Ontario numbers because of the smaller sample size.

The Bloc Quebecois held a huge lead in Quebec at 42 per cent, compared with 21 per cent for the Liberals and 17 per cent for the Tories.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/181244

[geoffrey]

I think if we observe all the trends here, across all the polls, we see a significant loss for the Liberals in Ontario, this one showing ~14% drop... ouch.

Crowning Dion was a tradgic mistake for the LPC. I can promise you with Kennedy or Iggy, those numbers would be higher today than they were at the last election.

As a former Ontarian, I know that we used to be upset about Chretien's Quebec centric focus and his poor English. I can imagine it's even worse with Dion. After all, we are the centre of the universe in Toronto, how dare a politican serve another province first. It's even worse in Alberta.

I really have no problem predicting a massive loss of support for the Liberals outside of urban Toronto. What do they have to offer? 905, 613, 519, 705... all areas that aren't so Liberal brainwashed as urban Toronto. I'm an old school 905'er myself (though when I moved out here, I was a Liberal). They'll vote for whoever sells them the best deal.

Just a bit of a question overall... when does Elections Canada fix the seats distribution, like is that a regular thing?

Alberta is shortchanged about 4 seats, BC about 6 (BC is the least represented province in Canada). I think Ontario is down a few too.

[jdobbin]

I think if we observe all the trends here, across all the polls, we see a significant loss for the Liberals in Ontario, this one showing ~14% drop... ouch.

Just a bit of a question overall... when does Elections Canada fix the seats distribution, like is that a regular thing?

Alberta is shortchanged about 4 seats, BC about 6 (BC is the least represented province in Canada). I think Ontario is down a few too.

I wish the sample size was bigger. It is hard to really assess the changes in Ontario.

Elections Canada needs Statistics Canada to release the numbers but they are delayed because the census was botched. Ask the Tory minister what happened as he was in charge.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/200...us-delayed.html

[geoffrey]

Sounds like they couldn't hire enough people in Western Canada.

They should just take the welfare people and get them to do it for free, why not?

[jdobbin]

Sounds like they couldn't hire enough people in Western Canada.

They should just take the welfare people and get them to do it for free, why not?

Again, a question for the Conservative minister.

[geoffrey]

Again, a question for the Conservative minister.

Which Minister? Isn't the Census independant?

[Riverwind]

They should just take the welfare people and get them to do it for free, why not?

It is not a completely unskilled job - people need to have a certain amount of people skills and they also must be able to work reliably on their own without a manager watching them all of the time. These requirements would exclude many people on welfare.

[geoffrey]

They should just take the welfare people and get them to do it for free, why not?

It is not a completely unskilled job - people need to have a certain amount of people skills and they also must be able to work reliably on their own without a manager watching them all of the time. These requirements would exclude many people on welfare.

Perhaps, but you got my point. Anywhere from 3-17% of the countries people sit on their asses all day, it shouldn't be hard for find a few hundred that can say "Hello! I'm from Statistics Canada and doing the ...."

[jdobbin]

Which Minister? Isn't the Census independant?

Nope. The minister of Industry is also responsible for the Statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Industry_(Canada)

Ask Maxime Bernier.

[Saturn]

Perhaps, but you got my point. Anywhere from 3-17% of the countries people sit on their asses all day, it shouldn't be hard for find a few hundred that can say "Hello! I'm from Statistics Canada and doing the ...."

Or they could just fill out the questionnaires themselves and claim they did the job

[Saturn]

Sounds like they couldn't hire enough people in Western Canada.

They should just take the welfare people and get them to do it for free, why not?

Alberta was the culprit. Less than 10% of people in Northern Alberta filled out their questionnaires before enumerators had to be shipped there from the East because it was impossible to find anyone to do the job for the amount of pay StatCan could afford. Somehow the thousands of unemployed in Alberta didn't jump at the $10/hr pay. Any idea why?

[jbg]

I really have no problem predicting a massive loss of support for the Liberals outside of urban Toronto. What do they have to offer? 905, 613, 519, 705... all areas that aren't so Liberal brainwashed as urban Toronto. I'm an old school 905'er myself (though when I moved out here, I was a Liberal). They'll vote for whoever sells them the best deal.

You left out 807. Thunder Bay, Kenora, Atikokan and Rainy River must be very insulted.

[Canuck E Stan]

latest polls from Feb 15-18

polls Feb.15-18 2007

But when asked how respondents would vote today, the Liberals showed a significant drop since Dion first won his party's leadership race (percentage-point change from a Dec. 3 poll in brackets):

* Liberals: 29 per cent (- 8)

* Conservatives: 34 per cent (+ 3)

* NDP: 14 per cent (none)

* Bloc Quebecois: 11 per cent (none)

* Green Party: 12 per cent (+ 5)

"This is clearly the first significant piece of evidence we've seen that suggests the Tories have a good foundation to move forward with a spring election," said Woolstencroft.

Meanwhile, when asked which party leader had the clearest vision of where he wants to take the country, Harper showed a significant lead over his rivals (percentage-point change from a Dec. 3-4 poll in brackets):

* Stephen Harper: 50 per cent (+ 18)

* Stephane Dion: 22 per cent (- 16 from when Paul Martin was leader)

* Jack Layton: 20 per cent (+ 1)

* Gilles Duceppe: 8 per cent (- 4)

More than half of respondents also felt that Harper is the most decisive of the party leaders.

* Harper: 53 per cent

* Dion: 19 per cent

* Layton: 20 per cent

* Duceppe: 8 per cent

Dion also lost out on charisma, which he himself defended shortly after becoming leader of his party.

[jdobbin]

latest polls from Feb 15-18

Looks like an an election in six weeks. Harper doesn't want to go longer than that because his support could crumble if there are a lot of casualties in Afghanistan as he himself suggested this past weekend.