Questionable Polling

A copy of this post sent to The Globe and Mail editor and to Nanos Research. No reply.

The latest example of questionable polling comes from The Globe and Mail and Nanos Research (June 21, 2010). Note each word in this finely-crafted question: Should people who receive Canadian aid internationally enjoy greater, the same, or less access to safe abortions than people in Canada?

Beware of questions beginning with the entrapment word should, especially if followed by options implying free choice. Such is not the case here.

The Globe seems unaware that abortion is illegal in many countries receiving Canadian aid. To impose outside values on poor countries is yet another example of rich nation imperialism.

Sidebar: The Globe, as with most of the common media, has yet to acknowledge the correlation between today's elementary school closings and the number of abortions a decade ago.

The question goes on to ask if recipient people should enjoy access to abortion. The subliminal message is that women enjoy destroying the life inside them.

Excluded from the question are those who favour some restrictions to abortion access, such as most Canadians. At the outset, the pollster determined if the interviewee agreed with abortion. If not, there's the end of the call, and the beginning of the bias. The Globe and Nik Nanos then extrapolate these questionable data from 1,008 calls into a national consensus.

In fact, the purpose of the poll is to intimidate the federal government into aligning its foreign aid policy with that of the pro-abortion newspaper.

Note: A December 30, 2011, report in the Toronto Star begins: "Canada's polling industry could be in for a shakeup in 2012, after some major knocks to its reputation in 2011." Ipsos senior vice-president John Wright admitted, "We are distorting our democracy, confusing voters and destroying what should be a source of truth in election campaigns -- unbiased, truly scientific public opinion poll." And the media are part of the problem, the report continues.