Polling Afghanistan Missions - A Push Too Far?

As Tom had reported earlier today, Charles Adler recently had a showdown with a representative of the Strategic Council, CTV Globemedia’s regular polling firm over an infamous poll that they conducted about the Afghanistan mission.

I can’t say how happy I am that a polling firm now has egg on its face after Adler did his fine work. For years and years, we’ve watched as polling firms have skewed results, tried to herd public opinion and really, really screw up, time and again! Listen to the Adler clip if you haven’t already and it becomes obvious that the Strategic Council’s Tim Wollstencroft has little regard for unbiased and clear polling practices. The fact that he was willing to attempt to defend his company’s conduct shows that he’s ignorant of even the most basic understanding of polling in general: it’s always going to be biased. The trick is to try to minimize the bias as to provide as accurate a picture as possible…if credibility is your objective. From the Wollstencroft incident, it’s clear once again that credibility isn’t on the radar for the major polling firms in Canada, who would rather try to bend the numbers to match a predetermined result.

Thinking about this, I had (I admit) a radical idea: why not ban polls during elections? It’s an idea my father first suggested years and years ago (during 1999’s Ontario election I believe) but it’s making a great deal of sense to me after hearing about the Adler-Wollstencroft incident. Before critics suggest that this is a freedom of speech violation in the making, might I state that no it isn’t. It would be a restriction on the press to publish certain stories (polls) but given the large precedent in our political system to restrict the press during trials, for example, as well as restrictions already placed on polls during the last weekend before an Election Monday, this isn’t such a dramatic change. In the spirit of compromise, I’d even be ready to settle on banning polls during the last week of an election.

These laws are put in place, like many others dealing with political advertising, fundraising and spending, to provide our country with a fair election. Think of how much polls change within one week of an election, and particularly during the last week of an election. It’s not like the idea that polling firms are trying to manipulate voter behaviour hasn’t been suggested before, by all the major parties’ supporters as well. Now imagine if we didn’t know where the Tories and Liberals were sitting in the polls. Imagine if, in 2004, voters leaning to the NDP weren’t so certain that their vote could mean the difference between a Liberal and Conservative government. It would likely have meant a lower Liberal seat total, but to the benefit of the NDP’s seat total. Such a restriction would likely give us a more accurate reflection on what kind of Parliament they’d want and who they’d want to represent their district. The alternative, the status quo, as I said before is a bunch of inaccurate polls that just seem to invoke strong reactions from swing voters yet for all their “credibility” turn out wrong every time we have an election. Strange coincidence? I think not.

At the very least, maybe the mere talk of curbing polling firms from publishing their results during their most profitable season might just make some of these guys re-think just how manipulative they want to be the next time they commission a poll! That in itself would be a reward all Canadian voters deserve.