This is perhaps only tangentially related to yesterday’s post about polls, but symptomatic of the Conservative desire to create illusion when the data just aren’t working.

Here, then, ICYMI, is a fairly old story, just for fun, from Mikey of “Harper Graphics.”

Back in February, Ed Holder, the Conservative MP for London West, put up one of those silly on-line polls, asking the following question:

“In light of President Obama’s decision not to allow the Keystone XL pipeline at this time, do you support the efforts by the Canadian government to find alternate markets, like China, for our oil exports?”

Despite the fact that most visitors to a boring old Conservative MP’s website are likely to be political co-religionists, something went horribly wrong. As Mikey points out, by Day Six, the “No” vote was exceeding the “Yes” vote by a healthy margin, 60% to 39%, and that margin was increasing.

Overnight, when ordinary folk are in their beds dreaming of sugar plums, this was, er, corrected. Six hundred “Yes” votes suddenly appeared, as if by magic, giving the Yes side a slim edge.

(Then the poll disappeared, but it’s one of those weekly polls, unarchived, so, pace Mikey, there’s no surprise there.)

This silliness is significant in only one respect—its abysmal insignificance. An eminently freepable poll-widget on a site with a tiny audience is not a serious sondage, but a weakly interactive means of engaging readers, no more. Yet, when the numbers in this case didn’t support the closed delusional system that is the Conservative world-view, they had to be made to fit—no matter how foolish that move makes Ed Holder look to a wider audience.

Do most Canadians, even those Canadians likely to visit the website of a backbench Conservative MP, feel comfortable with unrestricted tar sands development and increasing economic integration with China? I don’t know, to be honest, although I have the impression that doubts are growing. But I’m happy to have the real numbers speak for themselves, as they did once long ago before they became a bother. In that, and I don’t really need a poll to confirm this, I suspect I’m part of a healthy Canadian majority.