IN ASSOCIATION WITH CBC NEWS NETWORK’S POWER AND POLITICS, EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES IS CONDUCTING SURVEYS USING QUESTIONS AND TOPICS SUBMITTED BY VIEWERS. EKOS PRESIDENT, FRANK GRAVES LOOKS AT THE RESULTS OF THIS WEEK’S SURVEY.

[Ottawa – December 3, 2009] – Despite announcements that the recession is over, we see an unusual pattern among the public where management of the economy continues to be the dominant election issue (named by 31%), followed by social issues (27%). While the environment and climate change continue to be important issues for Canadians (tied with fiscal issues at 18%), they have yet to reclaim the salience they achieved before the recession. However, with economic confidence rising and the environment taking centre stage at the Copenhagen conference in a few weeks time, it is very likely that these issues will once again move to the forefront of the public psyche within the coming year.

On the issue of how the Conservatives are handling the environment file, there is both good news and areas of concern for the government in this week’s poll.

Notwithstanding the general hand-wringing and Greek chorus about the corrosive impacts of Canada’s current environmental strategy on our international reputation, there is little evidence to suggest that this is a major concern to most Canadians. While there is a slight lean to seeing it as having a damaging impact (40%), it is pretty modest at this stage, and almost as many say it has no impact on our reputation abroad (37%).

It is noteworthy that there is very strong correlation between sense that our reputation has been damaged and concern with national direction. This may be the single area where the Conservatives are most offside with the public sense of national direction. Unsurprisingly, non-CPC voters are more likely to be embarrassed about Canada’s environmental record (at least 1 in 2 current LPC, NDP, and BQ supporters say this has had a “negative effect”).

What is surprising – and this is evident on other indicators as well – is that concern about Canada’s environmental record is heightened among older Canadians (who tend to be more fluent on these issues). This may become a problem for the Conservatives, as this is a key constituency for them – especially as Canadians tell us that the environment and climate change are going to be important ballot booth issues (39% “somewhat important” and 32% “very important”).

There is a glaring gap between the CPC supporters and all others on the question of how important the environment will be in their next visit to the ballot booth. Only 18% of CPC supporters think it will be “very important”. Amongst all other party supporters that number is around 40%. The importance placed on this issue is highest in British Columbia, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. It is also a much greater concern in urban Canada and amongst the most educated (the only sizable constituency where the LPC now leads).

The final question examining the impact of the Conservative government’s record on the environment on vote intention points to the crucial nature of this issue on CPC aspirations for a majority. While a modest plurality (44%) say that the Conservative’s record on the environment will not change their likelihood of voting for them in the next election, those that say it will have an impact lean towards saying they will be less (34%) rather than more (22%) inclined to vote Conservative.

While these results clearly suggest that the Conservatives are unlikely to win many voters with their record in this area, it also raises concerns about their potential to lose support among segments of the public who would otherwise potentially be disposed to vote for them (i.e., even amongst current CPC supporters, close to 1 in 5 says they would be less likely to vote CPC because of their record on the environment). This is a particularly important concern with the senior vote – currently a key to Tory success – where 38% are “less likely” to vote Conservative. Interestingly, the ubiquitous boomer segment seems to have eschewed the “whole earth” roots of their youth, and is least likely to see this as a ballot booth issue (48% say it would have “no effect” on their vote intentions).

Click here for the full report: full_report_december_3

Posted on December 3rd, 2009 under National Results, Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed

It is interesting to compare the first week of the polling period and the final week of the polling period.

Two notable findings are evident. First of all, the Conservatives’ lead dropped by two points (from 37.7 to 35.7). Secondly, the ten-point advantage that the government enjoyed on “right direction” for federal government evaporated in the second week where right and wrong direction were tied for the first time in two months.

Against the backdrop of the growing controversy of Afghan detainees, these trends bear careful monitoring.

Click here for results: update_to_release_november_26

Posted on November 26th, 2009 under Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed

[Ottawa – Nov 26, 2009] – The extremely robust sample in EKOS’ latest survey of Canadians’ voting intentions (5,759 cases), conducted for exclusive release by the CBC, gives a deeper sounding of the Tories’ current ten-point lead over the second place Liberals.

Looking at segments of the Canadian electorate, the bedrock for the Tories is the group of Canadians over the age of 45.  The Conservatives do very well among baby-boomers. Their support among seniors is literally twice as high as among young people. Among Canadians under 45, the Conservatives fare less well, but no single party dominates these younger groups.

Indeed, the Conservatives would win a massive majority if only seniors could vote, but the Green Party would be in a four-way hunt for government if only those 18-25 could vote.

Historically, older Canadians have been more likely to vote, so it may be that the Conservatives are slightly closer to majority territory than the topline numbers suggest.

“The Conservatives’ strength is very solid,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “They lead in most of the regions of the country, including Ontario, have a massive advantage in the three Prairie Provinces, and are enjoying a modest rebound in Quebec.”

“However, they are still shy of a majority,” he said.

The Liberals may be experiencing a modest rebound among two groups they once dominated but among whom they yielded the lead to the Conservatives earlier this fall – the university-educated and New Canadians. However, this recovery is at best extremely tentative and fragile.

One possible harbinger of change in the political landscape is a definite though not dramatic shift in Canadians’ attitudes to the direction of the government. For a prolonged period, Canadians who had a positive view of the direction of the federal government outnumbered those who took a negative view. However, this has now changed: in the last week, those taking a negative view of the direction of the government equaled those taking a positive view.

Click here for the full report: full_report_november_26

Posted on November 26th, 2009 under National Results • RSS 2.0 feed

IN ASSOCIATION WITH CBC NEWS NETWORK’S POWER AND POLITICS, EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES IS CONDUCTING SURVEYS USING QUESTIONS AND TOPICS SUBMITTED BY VIEWERS. EKOS PRESIDENT, FRANK GRAVES LOOKS AT THE RESULTS OF THIS WEEK’S SURVEY.

[Ottawa – November 19, 2009] – This week’s special question looks at the issue of gun control in general, and the long-gun registry in particular. The results are highly revealing of a deeply fractured public on an emotionally charged issue. The research also shows that opposition to the long-gun registry may not be a good indicator of broader attitudes to gun control. In fact many people who oppose the registry support much more restrictive forms of gun control.

The conventional wisdom has been that the majority of Canadians support the long-gun registry but that it is highly unpopular in rural areas, particularly in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

As our recent survey results show, the Conservatives may have known something we didn’t because this is no longer the case. A very slim plurality of 38% wants to abolish the long-gun registry. Only 31% of respondents want to keep it. Support for retention was much higher amongst the university-educated, non-CPC voters, and those living in Ontario and Quebec.

An unusually high number of respondents did not indicate an opinion, which may suggest ambivalence on the issue.

So there is no overwhelming mandate from the public to eliminate the registry, but there is even less enthusiasm for retaining it.

Another question we asked shows a paradoxical result: a much higher percentage of Canadians support the much tougher measure of banning gun ownership outright. In fact a very slim overall majority of 54% favoured no guns whatsoever except for law enforcement.

Men, people living in Alberta, the Prairies and Atlantic Canada, and Conservative supporters are all adamantly opposed to a ban on guns. However, large majorities of women, Quebeckers, Ontarians, Liberal and Bloc Québécois supporters support this much tougher measure. So clearly the reactions to the gun registry appear to be a mixture of attitudes to guns themselves with attitudes about the efficacy and costs of the registry.

Drawing from an interesting suggestion from a viewer, we also tested what on the surface appears to be a fairly enlightened solution to the urban/rural split. We found that a clear majority of Canadians (64%) agree that guns should be strictly banned in urban areas; only 27% disagree. In no demographic group did a majority oppose the idea of restricting guns in the cities.

Finally we compared the results of our survey with an online poll conducted by the CBC. Both explore the issue of abolishing the gun registry, but our poll was based on random probability sampling whereas the on line results were based on anyone who “opted into” the online poll.

The comparison is quite interesting and should be noted because of the proliferation of online polls which don’t use probability sampling. In the online poll, a huge majority wanted to abolish the long-gun registry. Furthermore, the very large undecided group apparent in the probability sample virtually disappeared in the online poll as everyone who volunteered their views had a clear opinion (mostly in favour of abolition).

So what should we take from this? Despite the much larger numbers in the online opt-in poll, the 74% overall support for abolishing is unquestionably unreliable. Clearly the online poll disproportionately attracted the supporters of abolition, who were much more likely to volunteer their views.

This example is important because it underlines the continued importance of random sampling to accurately reflect the overall public. In an era replete with a proliferation of instant polls from Poll Daddy and Survey Monkey the public are bombarded with a plethora of conflicting “polls” which reflect nothing more than the views of those who answer them. This is all great fun but when the issues are of significance to the public interest it’s important to disentangle entertainment and science.

Click here to download the full report: full-report-november-19

Posted on November 19th, 2009 under National Results • RSS 2.0 feed

[Ottawa – November 19, 2009] – EKOS Research Associates is pleased to announce that, starting today, its highly successful series of weekly polls conducted for exclusive release by the CBC will be moving into a new phase in cooperation with Evan Solomon’s Power and Politics program on the CBC News Network.

Later today, on Power and Politics, Evan will be releasing the results of a survey question suggested by a viewer.  We will be reporting on a similar viewer-suggested question every second week on Power and Politics.

The CBC will be selecting the question for each of these surveys, in cooperation with EKOS, from suggestions submitted by its viewers on-line, based on originality of perspective and public relevance. The question will then be reviewed and revised to ensure balance and neutrality in the way it is posed to Canadians.

EKOS will continue to report on the race between the federal parties on alternating weeks. Reporting bi-weekly on vote intention will allow EKOS to augment its sample sizes – already by far the largest of any regularly conducted poll in Canada – allowing even more robust regional samples.

Find the results of these polls each week on www.ekospolitics.com, www.cbc.ca, and, of course, on Power and Politics on the CBC News Network.

Posted on November 19th, 2009 under Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed

[Ottawa - November 12, 2009] – Last month, EKOS posted seat projections based on our weekly survey of vote intention, which is released by the CBC.

At the time, the Conservatives were enjoying a sudden updraft in popularity, apparently driven by the Liberal threat to bring the government down and force an election. They hit 40.7%, which is several percentage points above the range in which they have been trading over the last year (with the exception of the period of the short-lived “coalition” scheme led by Stéphane Dion’s Liberals).

What was interesting about the seat projection done at that time was that it suggested the Tories would likely win a clear majority of about 167 seats.  This would not be a huge majority, but it would be a comfortable one, unlikely to be dislodged by the occasional defection or byelection loss.

Since mid-October, there has been less attention paid to the polls because each week the story has been pretty similar to the week before: the Conservatives well in front, and the Liberals well behind, mired in fact at historic lows.

But crucially, as has often happened in the past when the Conservatives lunge into majority territory, their edge seems to erode over time. And that has happened again. The Liberals, interestingly have not recovered since last month, still stewing in the mid-twenties; but the Conservatives have slipped incrementally back to their normal range.

And what does that do to the seat projections? Hey! Presto! Back to minority:

Conservative 142

Liberal 78

BQ 51

NDP 37

Greens 0

And more than just a minority; the same minority as we got in 2008. In this scenario, the Conservatives and Liberals are within a seat of the 2008 results. The Bloc is up two seats. And the NDP has exactly what they had last year. (So much for the persistent media narrative that the NDP is heading rapidly to oblivion!)

What does it tell us? Maybe that Canadians were right when they expressed themselves so strongly this fall that instead of sending us all to the polls, the parties in parliament should get down to governing for a while.

-Paul Adams

Click here to download the pdf version: ekos-seat-projection-november-12

Posted on November 13th, 2009 under Seat Projection • RSS 2.0 feed

LIBS TEN PERCENTAGE POINTS BEHIND TORIES

[Ottawa – November 12, 2009] – More than half of Canadians say that the high level of public concern over H1N1 is “exaggerated”. Just one in ten thinks the level of public concern is “understated”.

Fourteen per cent of Canadians reported having already received the H1N1 inoculation in this survey. “This is actually a very large number – about 5 million when you extrapolate the findings to the broader population,” said EKOS President Frank Graves.

Unlike many other things we look at in these surveys, the distribution of those who have received the shot is pretty even across the regions of Canada. “Despite stories of queue jumping, the only demographic correlate of note is age, where seniors are less likely to have received the shot, which is actually consistent with risk targeting. Otherwise, one’s language, residence, ethnicity, and social class do not seem to be significantly correlated with whether or not one has received the shot. Universality seems to have survived in this instance,” noted Graves.

About a third of those who hadn’t received the shot said they were “absolutely certain” to get it, while another 17% said they were “quite certain”. Only about a quarter of those who have not had the shot said they were certain not to get it. Somewhat troubling is that there appears to be a reverse connection with risk: younger Canadians – who are in a higher risk category – are significantly less likely to get the shot whereas seniors – who are less at risk of complications from H1N1 – are almost all going to get it. There are also some curious connections to political orientation, with Green Party supporters and B.C. residents more averse to the shot, while Quebeckers and Bloc supporters are highly committed.

“Canadians are somewhat anxious, but not panicked, for the most part,” said Graves. “While support for the federal government’s handling of the pandemic has slipped somewhat since July, before the current flu season, Canadians are now almost equally divided on the government’s handling of the disease. From our past experience tracking public response to other health crises such as SARS, avian flu, and West Nile virus, it appears that the public are not unusually alarmed. More importantly from the government’s perspective is that, unless things seriously unravel from here, the current levels of approval will probably evolve into quite favourable approval in the long term.”

There were significant regional variations in the level of support for the federal government’s work on the issue: Quebeckers were much more positive than other Canadians.

Canadians were somewhat more positive generally about the role played by provincial and municipal governments in handling the crisis.

Although the Liberals might like to think that the H1N1 pandemic will turn into Stephen Harper’s “hurricane Katrina,” as a recent email from the party’s president put it, there is no sign that this is happening, and even less sign that the issue is benefitting the Liberals.

The Conservatives have edged down somewhat from their October peak, in the aftermath of Liberal election threats, but they are still about where they were in the 2008 election. The Liberals, meanwhile, after having enjoyed a relatively stronger spring and summer, are back down where they were in the 2008 election – their worst-ever in history.

“The parties now appear to be fairly ‘locked in’ to support levels consistent with the last election. There does not appear to be anything in the handling of the H1N1 crisis which is like to disrupt that pattern. What must be most worrisome for the Liberals is that while the Conservatives have slipped somewhat in the last month, none of that shift has accrued to them,” said Graves. “If anyone has been the beneficiary, it may be the NDP, which has recovered somewhat from the political crisis of the early fall, and is now back near the top of its normal range.”

Click here to download the full report:full-report-november-12

Posted on November 12th, 2009 under National Results • RSS 2.0 feed

CANADIANS DON’T WANT PARTY INFLUENCE ON STIMULUS SPENDING

[Ottawa – November 5, 2009] – A recession, a new Liberal leader, a new president south of the border – all coming since last year’s Canadian election – but after many ups and downs since then, Canada’s two major political parties are back where they were in the election of 2008, almost to the decimal point.

The Conservatives, who broke out to establish a double-digit lead over the Liberals since the summer, have ebbed a little from their peak. They are now at 37.4% support in the latest EKOS poll, just a fifth of a percentage point from where they were in last year’s election.

Similarly, the Liberals, at 26.8%, are just over half a percentage point above where they were under Stéphane Dion’ s leadership in the last election.

“This is the repetition of a disappointing pattern from Stephen Harper’s perspective,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “Whenever the Tories surge up into majority territory as they did a few weeks ago, they soon find themselves slipping back, as they have done now.”

“From the Liberal perspective, these results must be deeply troubling. Despite a new leader, and party coffers refilling, the Liberals are not competitive for government at the moment. They desperately need something to shake up the current pattern of support. It may be mildly encouraging for the Liberals to note, however, that they have whittled the Conservatives 15-point lead down to 10 points.”

The poll, conducted weekly for exclusive release by the CBC, has a sample size of 3,327 – the largest of any regular political poll undertaken in Canada. The sample size enables us to see that Ontarians, who control about a third of the House of Commons, are also back almost precisely to where they were in October 2008, with the Conservatives enjoying a lead of about six percentage points.

The Liberals are, however, edging back up ahead of the Conservatives in Quebec.

Of all eligible senior voters, more than half are intending to vote Conservative, by contrast, just 1 in 4 of Canada’s young voters are planning on voting for the Conservatives.

Among the smaller parties, the NDP are off about two percentage points from the last election, and the Greens are up more than three percentage points, though experience suggests the Greens perform better in polls than they do at the ballot box.

In the wake of recent reports that the federal government’s stimulus spending may be going disproportionately to Conservative-held ridings, this week we asked Canadians whether it was OK for communities who had voted for the ruling party to get greater benefits from the economic action plan.

No surprise that Canadians were more than four times more likely to say that the voting record of a community shouldn’t matter. Even Conservative supporters felt that way by a margin of over 3 to 1. Relatively speaking, the young, men, and Quebeckers, are more tolerant of political influence on stimulus spending than other Canadians.

“In principle, at least, Canadians say they object to partisan influence on spending,” said Graves. “How that principle is applied when they see a shiny new hockey rink being built down the street may be different.”

Click here to download the full report: full-report-november-5

Posted on November 5th, 2009 under National Results • RSS 2.0 feed