The Harper regime has turned its attention to messing with public opinion polls. Instead of allowing commissioned polling firms to explain their methodology and findings, the government is now doing its own “analysis.”
In the past six months, public opinion reports on 32 different subjects have been posted to the [Library and Archives Canada] website. Eleven involved focus group research only and 20 included surveys. In four of those 20 surveys, the government conducted the analysis of the results.
“They never used to do that,” says Darrell Bricker, CEO of the polling company Ipsos Global Public Affairs. “They always used to ask us to do analysis of our surveys. We would do it stem to stern, but that has evolved.”
A spokesperson claims this is merely to save money. Good grief. Is there a single member of the Canadian public left who is gullible enough to swallow that? (Rhetorical question.)
Meanwhile, the Conservatives continue to break the law with impunity, this time its own Accountability Act:
Tables that show raw survey data are also supposed to appear. Indeed, the government readily acknowledges it has a legal obligation to post them. But even those are sometimes missing. For example, a Nov. 16, 2011, report on a survey of Canadians’ perceptions of the state of the economy, commissioned by the Finance Department, not only offers no summary or analysis of the findings, it also lacks the data tables required by law.
Another report, dated March 2, 2012 and commissioned by Health Canada, examined attitudes toward the health care system. Conducted by the Strategic Counsel, the research involved a survey of 2,500 Canadians, as well as focus groups.
While the report presents the findings from the focus groups, it is silent on the survey results because, the report says, “a detailed analysis of the results from the survey was not requested as part of this contract.” The raw data tables initially were missing as well, and were only added to the website after the Citizen asked Health Canada to release them.
Harper’s war on data continues—and he may have effectively won another battle.
[H/t Marlawd]
