Tag: media bias

Rally for Canada budget consultation survey results

On Friday, I sent out an email to the tens of thousands on the Rally for Canada email list asking them to participate in a small survey concerning the upcoming federal budget.  I asked people four questions concerning the government spending and their public policy priorities.  Over three thousand people responded on Friday and over the weekend.  I will be passing on the results to the office of the Minister of Finance as promised.

Q: On the question of Canada’s upcoming federal budget to get us through the economic crisis, which balance within the following options do you think is best for the government to implement? (n=3003)

Q: Which issues are most important to you from a government policy point of view? (n=3051)

Here is the same graph sorted in descending order (n=3051):

Q: What should be done with the Senate? (n=3007)

Q: What should be done with funding for the CBC? (n=2998)

Some notes: “n” is the number of respondents to each question.  Data was gathered from 8am Friday through midnight Sunday night.  Sample data is gathered from a population set that registered on the anti-coalition website RallyforCanada.ca between December 4th 2008 and January 9th 2009.  Answers were not randomly cycled.

That said, this data gives us insight into the priorities of Canadians who are against the concept of a Bloc-supported NDP-Liberal coalition government.  The first question was a careful balance on both sides of the spending vs. taxes debate.  On one hand, the answer set does not include an option to decrease spending and on the other, four out of five answers prompt at least some tax relief.  Most analysts believe that the federal budget will include some tax relief and stimulus in the form of government spending.  The largest group believed a balance spending/tax relief approach would be best while the second largest group favours substantial tax relief and no new spending (given the options presented).

The second question had 24 options.  Each option was a yes/no checkbox to pick public policy priorities.  There was little surprise on the distribution of public policy interests as the generally right-of-centre respondents selected jobs, economy, crime, tax cuts, healthcare choice, and military spending as priorities while passing on foreign aid, culture and arts, and native affairs.  Wheat board reform is generally a conservative priority yet this question is likely too regional for a national survey.

On the specific questions, it is of particular interest that 90% of respondents believe that the Senate in it’s current form must change.  Only 10% of respondents thought that the Senate ought to be left as it is.  On the question of spending for a particular budget item, respondents indicated that funding for the CBC should be decreased (61%) while only 6% thought it should be increased.

Conservative Party looks to Karl Rove playbook

In Ottawa this week, Conservatives hoping to sharpen their political skills looked south, to the United States of America to replicate the success of the back-to-back electoral victories of George W. Bush and the Republican machine.

In caucus, Conservative MPs and senators were treated to a strategy session that was based on information written by “Bush’s Brain”, Karl Rove. Rove served in the Bush administration as deputy chief of staff to the President and is largely known as the architect of Republican victories during the past decade. “Bush has taken what we thought we knew about politics and turned it into a different game for a different generation” was heard from Wednesday’s caucus session.

Pollsters agree that Rove’s approach to mobilizing select groups of voters on highly motivating issues is the key to creating a permanent Conservative majority. Conservatives may be facing an election this fall and are increasingly known to be studying Rove’s strategies to achieve more seats when Canadians go to the polls.

The preceding would be on the front page of the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail if it were true. Since it is not, I’m thankful that I was able to find this analogous yet reality-based account buried on Susan Delacourt’s blog.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour was ‘celebrated’ worldwide on Saturday in order to raise “awareness” of climate change and our wasteful consumption of energy. I was made aware of this event by the huge (approx) 50 ft full colour banner hanging from Ottawa city hall, the countless full colour flyers taped to lamp posts downtown, the wall to wall TV network coverage that has been burning up the microwaves, the buckets of black ink used to print clever ‘lights out’ themes on the front pages of newspapers produced from dead trees. Ironically, one Earth Hour promoter suggested sitting in the dark and burning candles instead of having the lights on. Alas, burning wax is a much less efficient method of producing light, and a process that produces more CO2, than using fluorescent (or even incandescent bulbs) that have been produced as a result of industrial progress, and market-based innovation. Indeed, the net result of industrialization was to create more efficient processes for achieving the same or better end results for less energy cost and less energy waste.

I live in downtown Ottawa. Besides a few lights off at Parliament Hill, there was no noticeable change in the electrical demand of our nation’s capital. I wasn’t up to too much of any consequence between 8 and 9pm last night so I decided to take a bit of an Earth Hour tour of the city from the comfort of a heated and fossil-fuel powered vehicle.

First stop was the Public Service Alliance of Canada building at 233 Gilmour st. This building is the Ottawa/federal hub for left-wing / labour / socialist causes as NDP associations and organizations close to the NDP have frequent use of board rooms and meeting spaces there. Here it is in its Earth Hour illuminated glory:

Not only were the lights on that illuminate the building on the ground floor and span half of the block flooding the grounds up until the sidewalk, a good number of offices were also lit up. These folks keep union hours (nobody’s working at 8pm on Saturday night).

Next stop was the CBC on Queen st. It was a big night for CBC after all. Hockey Night in Canada is a Canadian institution and the CBC wasn’t about to go dark for the occasion even though a lot of airtime was dedicated to raising ‘awareness’ for the event.

CBC Ottawa also did not go dark for Earth Hour. The building itself is within walking distance of where I work and live (it’s also across from Hy’s) so I have noted that CBC has frequently (if not every single night) kept the lights on during the night when nobody’s working. Their empty cubicle farm located at street level is always lit up at any hour of the night when I walk by on the sidewalk. Sadly, Earth Hour was no exception.

I also high-tailed it up to Rockcliffe for a quick drive past Stornoway and 24 Sussex. The Liberal leader’s official residence on Acacia ave was dark save for a small outside light and 24 Sussex had the lights on at the RCMP guard houses near the gate, a room light, and a few other lights on (generally for security one assumes).

How does one measure the success of Earth Hour? Are there any more people today that are ‘aware’ of climate change that weren’t yesterday? These sorts of “global” events have been held in the past. Live Aid and Live8 were meant to raise “awareness” of African poverty. Unfortunately, Africa is still poor and we’re just as aware of this. Live Earth was a global concert to raise awareness of global warming, but the concert itself had a considerable carbon footprint as celebrities and rock stars flew in on their private jets and arrived by chauffeured limo to tell us to install low flow shower heads and use less toilet paper.

These sorts of events are designed to make people feel good and think that they’re part of a global solution to a collective problem. However, it seems that no concrete action is achieved by raising awareness on issues of which people are already well aware.