Leading Questions in Polls

So a Leger poll came out today that had estimates of the Liberals at 40% and the Conservatives at 30%.  If that was the outcome of an election the Liberals would be elected to comfortable majority government.

Interestingly there was one other question for the poll regarding the Throne Speech which did not have the most neutral wording.  I would bet a great deal of money that the Throne Speech question came before the party support question, which would explain the sudden spike in the Liberal estimates.

We have seen this in the past from Leger and from other pollsters as well.  Putting a question in front of the party support question that we could reasonably assume would impact the party support question.  The lowest estimate that the Liberals had in recent Leger polls came when they put a WE question before the party support question.

This may seem unfair but putting these kinds of questions before the party support question is considered to be a valid practice by the industry.  I can see their point to some extent but I have always preferred the party support question to be asked up front.

I believe one reason why it is accepted practice is public opinion and elections result do not take place in a vacuum.  There is a reason why election campaigns matter.  For the whole of the campaign the different parties are trying to establish the dominant ballot question for election day.  So, by putting the issue question before the party support question the pollster is giving the respondent something resembling a ballot question.  

When Leger made WE a simulated ballot question the estimates for the Liberals went down (but the estimates for the Conservatives did not go up it should be noted). Although, the reduction was still not enough for the Liberals to lose an election if that would have been the outcome of one.  Conversely, when Leger made the Throne Speech a simulated ballot question the estimates for the Liberals increased substantially.  

What does this prove?  Not much.  It is a single poll so trying to discern a broader message from it is a waste of time.  

A little off topic.  I have seen some people say that Nanos and Ipsos have different estimates even though they were in the field at the same time as Leger.  So which one is correct?  None of them are.  Why are they different?  Different polling companies with different frames, sample designs, questionnaires, collection methods, data processing strategies, estimation methods and so on.  All of these things impact the final estimates from polls and very few people really understand how.  Although, that really does not matter because the polling companies do not share this information anyway.

Some Political Thoughts

 Alot has been going on recently but I do not have the time to write a post about all of them so this post contains some relatively quick takes on what I have seen in recent days and weeks.

The Speech from the Throne was what I expected.  I know that many were hoping for much more groundbreaking proposals, such as Universal Basic Income, but that is not how politics in this country works.  Canada has always been a country were change is evolutionary not revolutionary.  As well, starting the UBI process will take time and stability and minority governments are unstable by definition.  UBI is on the radar of many now so it is probably a matter of when Canada will see some form of it instead of if.  Until then I would say that Canadian progressives should be very happy that our current Federal government is the most progressive we have seen since Trudeau the Senior ran the show and the only real alternative to the Liberals, in the eyes of Canadians, is the Conservatives who are the most regressive political party ever seen in Canada.  If you are progressively minded you should be doing whatever it takes to keep the Liberals in power.

The reaction of the Opposition Parties to the Speech was predictable.  The Governor General had barely finished reading the speech before the Conservatives indicated that they would not support it.  Some have stated that this indicates that they want an election but it indicates the exact opposite.  If they wanted an election they could have taken their time.  Instead they rushed to condemn the Speech right away because they wanted to send a message to the other Opposition Parties that if they did not want an election they would have to be the ones that support the government.  The Conservatives did not want an election but they did not want to be put into a position of having to support the government to prevent one either.  That is why they were so quick off the mark.

The well known Liberal pollster Angus Reid published a poll indicating that the government of Jason Kenney is now tied with the Opposition NDP in Alberta.  If Angus Reid is indicating that then Mr. Kenney is in much bigger trouble than that poll is indicating.  Jason Kenney is an extreme Conservative ideologue and he believed that winning government in Alberta, a province that has allowed itself to be repeatedly brutalized by Conservative governments, would allow him to push that ideology as far as his heart desired.  That is the reason why he passed on trying to become the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.  He would have had to temper his conservatism in that position.  Many believed the election of Ms. Notley was just an expression of anger and a desire for temporary change while the provincial conservative parties got their shit together.  That could be true but it could have also been an indication that Albertans do have limits to how far Conservative provincial politicians can push their Province to the right and maybe Mr. Kenney is going beyond those limits.  

The measure of just how bored the media is in this country is the recent speculation of a snap election in Ontario, with two years left in Doug Ford's majority mandate.  If he went into an election he would probably win and get himself four more years but there is also a chance that he could suffer the fate of David Peterson, a former Liberal premier, who called an early election to take advantage of some good polling and to avoid the fallout of a recession that was barreling down on Canadians at the time.  He called the election and a few weeks later the Ontario NDP, lead by Bob Rae, formed a majority government.  We are talking politics so anything can happen but do not expect the next Ontario election until 2022, which will be won by Doug Ford with a Liberals Official Opposition.

The Repubicans' horniness to fill that Supreme Court seat is the biggest indication that they do not expect to win the White House and that their majority in the Senate is in deep trouble too.  If they believed otherwise they would be willing to take their time.  Instead they want to do it while they still can.  They will probably succeed but it will probably come at a cost in November and beyond.  Female millennials and young women that followed them are very much of the opinion that they should be in control of their own bodies.  If a conservative court takes that away from them then that just might motivate a very large block of voters to become much more active in using politics to take it back.  That would be bad news for the Republicans, at all levels, for years and perhaps decades to come.

Donald Trump also does not expect to win the White House in November.  If he did he would not be talking about contesting the results.  If he loses as badly as current polling indicates that he is losing he will leave.  I do not think even the Republicans and the conservatives members of the Supreme Court would be willing to undermine the Electoral College as much as they would have to in order to allow him to stay on after a clear loss by him.  Of course, if it is close then that might change the dynamic a bit.  However, if he does manage to stay on by means of some political shenanigans the midterms in 2022 will be very bad for the Republicans.

Well, it took six months

I am seeing rumblings about what the Trudeau government knew and when and whether they reacted quickly enough to the threat posed by the virus.

First let's remember that although the WHO knew about the virus in China and Asia as early as December 2019 they believed that it could be contained and were working with China to contain it in Wuhan province.  Looking at the WHO Pandemic Timeline demonstrates that.  Canadian authorities would have been monitoring the situation but there was not much they could have done at that point, except issue travel advisories and provide any assistance to China that they could.  

On January 30 the WHO declared the COVID virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.  That is not the same as a pandemic.  That means that the global community should be concerned about this virus because it had potential to become a pandemic.

So I would imagine that the PM Trudeau and key advisors would have met on our about January 30 to discuss the issue.  The participants at the meeting would have been the:

• Health Minister
• Finance Minister
• Deputy PM
• Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Chief political advisor for the government

I imagine the conversation went something like this.

PM:  The WHO has declared this new virus a PHEIC.  I believe that means that this virus could spread to Canada.

Health Min:  Yes, that is what it means.

PM:  Well if that is the case I believe we should do everything in our power to prevent that.  What steps should be take to do so.

Health Min:  We should stop all travel to and from China and other countries that have cases.  We should also consider shutting down all international travel by Canadians because this virus is likely to spread beyond Asia.  We should apply restrictions to travel between the US and Canada.  We should begin preparing Canadians for the possible lock down of the economy.  Considering what we know, so far, about this virus, once it takes hold the only option will be to send everybody home to stay there until we can get it under control.

PM:  Really, we would have to take all of those actions to prevent the virus from coming here?  Is any of that even feasible?

Foreign Affairs:  Unilaterally shutting down all travel to and from China will not be taken very well in Beijing.  We could do it but it will hurt Canadian financial and commercial interests. 

Deputy PM:  Neither would unilaterally restricting travel over the Canada/US border.  Indeed, that would be impossible.  The Trump Administration will not accept any reduction in traffic across the border.

Finance Min:  The economic cost of these suggestions would be very high.  The airline industry would take a particularly big hit even if we just greatly restrict air travel.  If we take the suggestion of shutting down the economy the cost will be astronomical.  Millions of Canadians would be put out of work and our GDP would probably collapse.  

Political advisor:  Let's also remember that at this point none of what is being suggested will probably be effective.

PM:  Why is that?

Political Advisor:  Because it is basic human psychology.  Humans do not react to a threat until it is in their face.  This virus is still just a distant concern to Canadians, not a threat.  So any drastic actions proposed by the government will probably be ineffective.  If we tell Canadians to stay home to prevent the virus from coming to Canada they will ignore us.  The airlines and business will howl saying that we are overreacting.  The media and the opposition will say we are overreacting.  Most Canadians will say we are overreacting.  

Health Min:  If we want any chance of preventing the virus from coming to Canada we have to implement the measures I indicated.

PM:  Would that guarantee Canada would not be hit by this virus?

Health Minister:  No.  It will only increase the chances of it not hitting the country.

PM:  So we could essentially attempt to shut down the country and if we succeeded the virus could hit the country anyway?

Health Min:  Yes PM.

PM:  But in actuality, most of these measures are probably not feasible and the ones that might be would probably not be effective?

All other participants:  Yes PM.

Health Min:  But if we do not implement these measures it is only a matter of time before virus comes to Canada and we have no idea what it will do when it gets here.

PM:  So I guess what we need to do is prepare for its arrival.  What steps should be take now?

Health Min:  Continue to monitor the situation through the WHO and begin to take steps to detect the virus in Canada.

Foreign Affairs:  Issue travel advisories for countries that currently have COVID cases.  This has already been done.

Finance Min:  Begin to model the potential economic and fiscal impacts.

PM:  OK, I guess we are going to have to accept the fact that we cannot keep the virus out of Canada.  We can only mitigate its impacts both to public health and to the economy.  We are going to have to accept that Canadians are going to die because of this virus and that the economy could take a potentially big hit.  We will begin to implement the pandemic response plan to mitigate the public health impacts.  At some point this virus could become the threat that will galvanize Canadians and we may have to lock down the economy.  If so, I would like to encourage Canadians to do so by developing economic support programs.  We cannot develop them now but we can begin to do the groundwork.  If it becomes necessary we will have to deliver these programs in weeks not months so let's begin to work on them now.  We will consult with our allies and trading partners regarding collective actions to curtail the spread of the virus.  I will begin consulting with the Premiers.  They need to know what could be coming so that they can begin their own preparations.

PM:  Is there anything else we can do right now?

All other participants:  No that is a good start but this is only the beginning.  This has the potential to become much worse before it gets better.

PM:  OK, this will be a work in progress but we are agreed on what needs to be done right now.

All other participants:  Yes.

PM:  OK, thank you.

Of course, the actual conversation was very different but the above probably captures the gist.  The simple fact is all governments had a very stark choice at the end of January.  Implement very stringent measures to curtail the spread of the virus, with the commensurate impacts on their economies or protect their economies at the potential cost of many of their citizens.   

It should come as no surprise that most of the countries that took the stringent measures were countries close to the first epicentre of the virus.  It should also be unsurprising that countries that were really far away from that first epicentre took a more wait-and-see approach.  

Did the Canadian government take the best approach available to them?  That is debatable.  However, there were no perfect solutions to the problem in which they found themselves.  All they had were options and none of them would have prevented COVID from coming to Canada and none of them would have prevented the economic fallout we experienced. 

Personally, I believe they made the best of a bad situation.  They could have done somethings better but on the whole I believe they did what could be done.

Old Liberals

I have been seeing some old Liberals pop their heads up recently to criticize the current Liberal government. These old Liberals have been around for some time and they are often used by the news media to provide the "Liberal" point of view on their panel shows even though they have not been part of the party establishment for quite some time.

Some have asked why would these old Liberals come out against the government?

There seems to be several theories.  The one I see the most is that they are Blue Liberals who do not like the tack the current government is taking.  After all Justin Trudeau did not follow the old Liberal trick of campaigning from the left but governing from the right.  He actually campaign from the centre-left and he as governed from there since his government was elected. 

Maybe there is some truth to that but I believe it is much more personal than that.  You see from the election of Pierre Trudeau as Leader of the Liberal Party, to when Justin Trudeau was elected as leader, the Liberal Party had been under the thumb of the same power brokers.  They were the movers and shakers behind the party and they provided their heft in making certain that the party continued to realize success.  In return they expected loyalty from the Leaders of the Party towards them and their interests.  Most of the party apparatus was connected to those movers and shakers in some way.  There would have been no way that those who were part of that apparatus could have been employed by the Party if they were not.

Justin Trudeau was expected to be another in that line of Party Leaders who were beholden to those old Liberal grandees.  However, Justin Trudeau did not believe the same thing.  I believe the fact that the Liberals were reduced to Third Party status lead to the weakening of the hold of the old Liberal establishment on the Party.  Suddenly with Mr. Harper enjoying electoral success and the NDP being poised to actually form a government many in the Liberal Party realized things had to change.

I have mentioned in this space before that one of the accomplishments of Justin Trudeau, for which he receives little to no credit, was his remaking of the Liberal Party.  Ironically, he did what his father did.  When Trudeau the Senior won the leadership he cleaned out the old Liberal establishment that had existed since Mackenzie King.  When Justin Trudeau was elected he cleaned out the old Liberal establishment that was created by his father.  Although Justin Trudeau's cleaning was much more thorough than his father's.

That is one of the biggest reasons for the lack of support of old Liberals for the current Trudeau government.  Part of it is the direction the Trudeau government is taking Canada but much more of it is that fact that Justin Trudeau cleaned house.  The old Liberal establishment was swept away with only a few vestiges of it left over when he was elected PM.  Since then he has made it a clean sweep.  Needless to say that members of the old Liberal establishment did not like to be cast aside like that.  That was disloyal on the part of Mr. Trudeau and to be frozen out of the many patronage appointment that the PM can make just added injury to insult.  

I believe that Mr. Trudeau knew that there would be blowback for his actions but I also believe that he realized Canada is changing and that the old Liberal establishment, established in the late 60s to early 70s, would have driven the Liberal Party to near extinction.  (With the enthusiastic assistance of both the Conservatives and the NDP)  So he dragged the Liberal Party into the 21st Century and left the old guard behind.  In the long run the Liberal Party and the country will be better off as a result of his actions but that will not stop members of the now deposed old guard from shouting from the cheap seats.