Thursday 4 April 2013

Surprise! Canadians Do Want the Opposition to Cooperate!

The poll I helped pay for has been released.

And guess what? All those pundits saying Canadians don't want cooperation among the Fucking Useless Opposition® are wrong.

Canadians support electoral reform, would vote for cooperation candidates – new national poll

April 4 – Toronto –  A new national Environics poll shows that Canadians think our democratic system is broken, overwhelmingly favour proportional representation, and are willing vote for cooperation candidates to defeat Conservative MPs in the next federal election.

The telephone poll, which sampled 1,004 voters, comes just days before voting in the Liberal leadership race is set to begin. Cooperation and electoral reform have been major topics of debate between the two top candidates, Joyce Murray and Justin Trudeau.

Poll Findings
1. Canadians more likely to say our democratic system is broken than effective. When asked if our democratic system is broken and needed to be fixed, or effective and works well – 45% said broken and 33% said it works well.

2. Seven in ten Canadians support move to proportional representation. When asked if they would support a move to proportional representation – 70% of Canadians would support, with Liberal supporters at 77%, NDP supporters at 82%, Green supporters at 93%, and Conservative supporters at 62%.

3. Canadians would vote for cooperation candidates to defeat Conservative MPs.When asked if they would vote for a candidate that was jointly fielded by the Liberals/NDP/Greens to defeat a Conservative – 37% would vote for the joint candidate, 25% would vote for the Conservative candidate, 18% are undecided and 18% would not vote (this number is comparable to the number of people in this poll who said they did not vote in the last election.) Notably, over 70% of Liberal and NDP supporters would vote for the joint candidate while less than 7% would vote Conservative.

4. Disenfranchised Canadians would be more likely to vote. People who did not vote in 2011 were asked if this idea would make them more or less likely to vote in the next election – 22% said more likely, 10% said less likely, and 66% said it would have no effect.

The poll was funded by 692 Canadians who donated online through Leadnow.ca. Leadnow.ca supports cooperation for electoral reform. Interviewing for this Environics National Telephone Survey was conducted between March 18th – 24th, 2013, among a national random sample of 1,004 adults comprising 502 males and 502 females 18 years of age and older, living in Canada. The margin of error for a sample of this size is +/- 3.10%, 19 times out of 20.
PDF at link.

And it is just so cool that 692 Canadians paid for this.

I've signed up as a LPC supporter. I got my ID and PIN number yesterday. I'm going to vote for Joyce Murray. It won't stop the coronation, but if she gets enough votes, it may make rabid partisans think again.

I've also written to my NDP MP to report this. I've heard nothing back. Maybe I'll try again.

5 comments:

MgS said...

I think that there is room for a lot more cooperation in the HOC. I'm less convinced of the value of "strategic" candidate games where one party steps aside in favour of another. It would be a good thing for the NDP (for example) to focus on slapping the Con$ about and spend less time sniping at the other opposition parties like the Liberals.

Electoral cooperation sends a very mixed message to the voters overall, as it tends to suggest that the opposition parties all represent the same basic things. Do they really? Based on some of what has come out of the NDP, Green and Liberal parties, I'm not so sure.

With respect to getting rid of Harper, that's true enough. However, voting against Harper isn't the same thing as voting for a change in government.

Luna said...

I'll write mine too, as soon as I stop snickering about writing to Mr. Garrison.

I am a child, apparently.

Luna said...

Okay, done! Hope it helps!

Beijing York said...

Our system is very flawed and needs a work over for sure.

Honestly, it's hard to say how a cooperative approach would work in re-engaging people who have lost so much faith in the system. We know that there are those who will vote their party no matter how much of a long shot it may be or not. Then there are those who hope to vote based on policies presented or local issues flogged by the candidate or even their credentials for candidacy. And finally there are those so sick and tired of the system not working that they throw away their vote to fringe parties or don't bother voting at all. (Actually, I feel bad making that fringe party comment since every party/POV deserves to run a candidate in a democracy.)

And there is no accounting for what dirty and ILLEGAL tricks the Harper Conservatives might have up their sleeves.

What we really need is an unpredicted and unexpected Quebec Orange wave phenom across the country. At this point, I don't give a flying f*ck if the wave is orange, green or red.

fern hill said...

@BY: Me too. Orange, green, or red wave is good with me too. We can't take much more of these corrupt, cheating vandals.

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