It's hard to fully believe the polls when they show such a difference day to day and across the different polling companies, but they do make it easy to see trends, and those trends show that there has been a BIG shift towards the Liberals from the NDP, and a smaller shift from the Cons to Libs.
From media coverage, and I'll admit I'm a biased Conservative voter from Calgary, it appears to much of the same this time around. There's a tweet going around showing the CBC difference in how they've reported Con vs Lib crime announcements, and it's fairly telling. I'm shocked that Carney hasn't been challenged at all by the MM, they are seemingly in love with him. Again, biased, but it seems like every question Pierre gets is a "gotcha" style question, where Carney gets more softballs. I haven't seen anything outside of The Line mentioning the "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism", and this seems like such radical policy, especially in the anti-tariff mindset most Canadians find themselves in. And don't get me started on the missed opportunity here for Pierre. Maybe it's being held for the debate?
Carney is also being let off the hook by the MM, and Canadian, for his party selfishly shutting down government for their own need to grasp onto power. If this was the Conservatives who had done this we'd never hear the end of it. It's not even mentioned during this campaign.
Lastly, but related, is the media seems to have galvanized on the opinion that Trump's actions must be met with counter tariffs and force, the "bullies only understand force" argument. They have been happy to cast Doug Ford the superhero and Danielle Smith the traitor, though both just seem to have different strategies of dealing with the tariffs. I'm not arguing in favor of Smith here, but I do think we need to put a little more understanding in the different ways of dealing with the crisis, and not just groupthinking our way into a confrontation with Trump that only seems to serve the Liberal's ambition.
Oh yah, the prorogation thing would be howled about for decades if the Conservatives did it under these circumstances. Swap the parties around and Liberal and media heads would be exploding and this would be a major election issue. Harper's use of this is still controversial and criticized, and it was shorter and used for far less dramatic effect.
There's an argument to be made, and will increasingly be made, that Trudeau basically used this to steal an election. But look at the TV screen and everyone is treating this as totally normal and acceptable, and memory holed like everything unfavourable that Liberals did more than a week ago.
I do believe the polls to the extent that I don't think the pollsters are lying or manipulating data (except possibly Frank Graves whom most aggregators seem to have rightly dropped). Clearly it's not fair or helpful to believe polls when they are in your favour and become a conspiracy level skeptic when they aren't.
However I do think it's possible that there is a certain type of person who is more likely to take polls regardless of their other demographic characteristics, who disproportionately parked their vote with the Conservatives in 2024 and now disproportionately moved Liberal. I'm not one of these people for example. I tend to hang up on pollsters who call my phone, assume text polls are scammers, and once I tried signing up for an online panel out of curiosity and ended up being spammed with so many useless nonsense surveys that I quit after like three days. Is my opposite a key swing demographic? Hard to say.
For the record, I think CPC turnout will add a few points to their column but I doubt it will be enough to overcome a collapse in NDP, Green, and Bloc vote, the former two of which don't even seem to be trying. Those leads in Ontario and Quebec would take a ton of polling error to overcome.
The reality is the Liberals used every lever of power at their disposal and timed this election just right to tilt it in their favour. This is the really concerning part and I'm still processing what that means for our democracy.
Liberals have been bad news for Canadian democracy since their rabidly anticonservative hysteria really starting in the early 2000's. Now, the damage the Liberals have done to the fundamentals of Canadian democracy since then is increasingly and blatantly obvious.
I've never seen a government do such shady shit to cling to power as the Trudeau/Carney regime. Even in the US, which for all its flaws, is much further from becoming a one-party state than we are.
It's like the Liberals know that if anyone ever becomes able to peer under the rug half of them will be going to jail for all those missing/misappropriated funds during Covid. Another election non-issue for our memory-impaired public and media!
Rally sizes and polls are two sides of the same coin - both are generally predictive of the direction of trends, and should not be relied upon for anything more than that.
That being said, any political party would rather be ahead in both those metrics than behind. The fact that it is right now split between the two parties is what is facilitating all kinds of narrative framing in the mainstream and social media - including in this column.
I know everyone has a bias and you’re correct, perhaps the complaints about the drop in the polls are just sour grapes. However, I don’t think you’re looking at the right things here. But let’s do a little test to verify, can you do this?
1/ Perhaps Jenn can shout downstairs and ask – Where are polls conducted? If the answer is “Online” (whatever that means). Then the results can be affected by AI bots. China has one of the most sophisticated AI systems in the world. I’m not saying they are, but they could be, and the Liberal campaign keeps having inconvenient connections to China.
Or if they are on Social media platforms, which social media platforms? BlueSky will get you a different result than Truth Social. And AI can still affect the polls running there.
And if polls are run “online” how do you know your polling Mrs. Somebody in LeftOvershoe Alberta? Because they self identified? Or IP? That can be spoofed with a VPN.
The question “Can the polls be trusted?” is a valid question in this election.
2/ You’re defending the media. Commendable. Your entirely correct that Conservatives should never have gone to war with a barrel of ink. BUT – Judy Trinh just got off the Liberal plane. Given the hyper partisan nature of this election, perhaps she shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have asked questions over another reporter. No respect for her profession there. Then she goes off on her scorched earth twitter campaign. That won’t be forgotten. I have no sympathy. She put her head in the Lions mouth, and he bit down. Boo Hoo.
3/ Apart from stars like you and Jenn, and a small number spread around, most journalists are not the cream of any crop. So, anything that is easy gets printed. Police, Fire and Paramedics give handouts and there are almost verbatim printed. All this is well known about the news profession. BUT – Is AI being used here? You know ChatGPT can be used to slant a story in a direction. Did this story get run thru an AI? ChatGPT that you can access is 4 generations old. Is the news being manipulated by a foreign actor?
I am seeing worrying signs of something happening, but like most good ops, nothing you can put your finger on. I have begun to suspect that we are in the first AI run misinformation campaign. Who is the puppet master? Will it work? And what’s the end game?
Am I the only one who heard Laura Stone ask Poilievre, "does size matter?" in a nudge-nudge-wink-wink kind of way? I don't think Mr P could have gone in too many directions after that.
Talk about crowd size among party leaders and followers is basically just a way to get more people excited about going to such events (although some like me probably try avoid such large crowds).
And polls should always be taken with a grain of salt. It's good to read the details about sample size. Even better is reviewing the actual questions. How leading are they? What are the response choices? If Carny wins, this weeks polls will be right. If he loses, they won't be. Polls schmolls. (That said, I do always look at polls with interest. I just know their limitations). I think polls make some people stay home on election day ("what's the point of voting? My guy is winning/losing") and make some stay-at-homers get off their ass to vote ("Wow, we can still win!"). Parties are using polls to rally the troops. It is what it is.
It seems like bullshit to me that Carney is referred to as The Prime Minister in the press solely because he identifies as The Prime Minister and his pronouns are The Prime Minister/The Prime Minister. Wiki: "The prime minister (currently Mark Carney) is the head of government, who is invited by the Crown to form a government after securing the confidence of the House of Commons..." Bit of a contradiction there.
It seems like bullshit to me that Carney keeps goading Trump because he wants a trade war to help him with the election, with no consideration of how it will effect negotiations later.
I disagree with The Line's suggestion Poilievre should have pivoted to the Trump issue for the election. He has done and is doing the correct things: promoting interprovincial trade and expanded non-US trade. The one thing he is not doing is trying to piss of Trump in the hope of a getting a mention on Truth Social. Carney is baiting Trump while showing no indication of improving our non-US trade. He supports east-west pipelines but will not get rid of C-69. He promises to dovetail federal and provincial environmental reviews to speed up approvals, but has no control over the provincial reviews and has promised not to change the federal reviews.
the entire piece reads like - Media is great, it's your fault if you fail, we are great and the best! Well, media has huge influence on normal people, way stronger influence than a political leader. defending but not reflecting oneself raises more questions.
We have spent 5 years offering pretty consistent and measured crticism of the media.
If a single piece that fails to affirm your anger and instead asks you to consider whether the CPC is scapegoating to deflect from their own failures is enough to trigger your psychological defences -- you aren't actually looking for real journalism on this subject. You're looking for writing that makes you feel better about your priors. There is a lot of activist "media" out there that will cater to your needs. Best of luck. JG
What an astonishingly rude, evasive, and gratuitously ad hominem response to a pertinent observation. How do you know the observation was prompted by anger, or what Ninjamonk may or may not be “looking for;” and what does Ninjamonk's psychological state (or for that matter your own) have to do with whether or not the observation is warranted? What relevance could your record of criticism over five years or any other time interval possibly have for the question of whether or not you're on target in this particular article? Defendant: “I've never committed such an infraction before, your Honour; therefore I can't be held culpable this time.” Judge: “Decision for the plaintiff. Thirty days!”
Finding for the plaintiff in this case requires not anger but a simple respect for evidence. We can debate the wisdom of the Conservatives' response to legacy media hostility, of course; but attributing any part of that hostility to a choice on the part of conservatives to make enemies of the press is preposterous. Even I can see that conservatives' longstanding adversarial relationship with Canada's legacy media was this media's default position to begin with, and I've always voted NDP. Ninjamonk won't need to stray far to encounter “activist” media; we're enveloped by it.
I'm more concerned that this piece affirms my anger and wonder if that's a good thing. What if this further tees me up to becoming even more rant-y? I mean, do I need even more people to step away from me at social gatherings when a rant takes full flight?
I would consider buying a founder's subscription if it included Jenn showing up once a year to a social gathering of my choice and effectively being my rant-by-proxy. All of the rant, but none of the social stigma (at least for me)!
I didn't really understand the "CBC just used CP's headline so it was OK" argument. CP did a shitty thing and CBC only copied it shouldn't be an excuse. Especially since the CBC should be able to spare the resources to have a quick glance at imported content. In fact, I would wager that CBC did vet the headline.
I’ll say this about the “it’s automated” defence on the CBC / Canadian Press issue…
That’s no defence.
Every news org outs responsible for what they publish. If they’re automatically publishing without review, THAT’S A CHOICE. And we’re all responsible for the consequences of your own choices.
I do believe the polls. But, we all know about the only one that matters. Here’s a snippet from Bloomberg way back in 1993:
`Campbell Mania' Could Keep Canada's Tories On Top
By William C. Symonds
April 25, 1993 at 10:00 PM MDT
Just two months ago, Canada's ruling Progressive Conservative Party appeared headed for a crushing defeat in this year's national elections, with support mired at less than 20%. But since Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Feb. 24 announcement that he would not run again, his party has enjoyed a spectacular resurrection. Although some surveys now point to a tight race, a new Gallup Canada poll shows that if the Tories select Defense Minister Kim Campbell as their new leader, they will win a startling 50% of the vote, vs. only 29% for the opposition Liberals.
Unfortunately for her, Kim Campbell wasn't shameless enough to time her election for the middle of her polling bump and a convenient crisis. Carney would suffer a similar fate if the election were held a few months from now. Jesus, look at his shambolic energy-free and info-free campaign. He's being carried by the angels because the man himself is a lead anchor.
I don't think the trustworthiness of polling data used - or those who do the polling tabulations - is at issue. I suspect the criticism raised about 'trusting' the polls - and I may be wrong - is about whether or not polls actually reflect what's (probably) true.
We know polls reflect the data collected. But we also know they often don't reflect what's actually true (for many reasons, not least of which is someone basically lying to the pollsters)! I also think one might be hard pressed to find someone unaware of how poorly polls have on occasion reflected actual voter preferences on voting day in the US at the federal level and have probably seen or heard from those shocked and surprised when real world results differ - sometimes significantly (I can remember the widespread shock in 2016 when Hillary lost to The Donald and the surprise that the sun actually rose the following day). It is becoming less rare that voting tallies reveal something quite different than what had been projected based on polling data and for all voters to remember this when considering polls and their predictive value when asked to cast a ballot.
I find this article a little naive. When media stops being subsidized by government they will gain more credibility. As for individual reporters, they all have their deadlines, and on a slow news cycle tend towards creating the story. I agree Laura Stone is a gem of a reporter. I have mixed views on Judy Trinh. Maybe it’s because she works for CTV and is styled as an ‘investigative reporter’ and my bias is showing. I’m in the camp that CBC, CTV and Global have been tarnished with the Liberal media subsidy brush for the last few years with unbalanced reporting against Conservatives and gung-ho on Trudeau’s Liberals. It’s only now that Liberals and Conservatives are in a dead heat that they see the writing on the wall and are trying to add more balance.
I used to enjoy reading your reports but surprised at your 'bullshit' comments about Pierre and the CPC. I'm starting to think you're both closet Liberals. Interesting you didn't identify Trinh as a Liberal reporter similar to David Atkins. I had to get that fact from another comment. Everyone knows how biased the mainstream media is, very disappointing to find it here from an independent source. And another commenter is right on the money that had the Conservatives pulled the stunts the LIBS had in shutting down Parliament first to avoid a non-confidence vote, then to install a new undemocratically chosen leader, and crowned PM we would never hear the end of it.
Pollsters love a horse race and they certainly have one to adjudicate over this time.
I admit that I have reservations about pollsters in general who seem to bathe themselves in unearned importance by looking at poll numbers and trends and telling us what we should read from statistics. In a true horse race, nobody gives a shit what the horses ate before the race. Also, many voters do their own thing anyway, especially those voters who look at raw numbers and strategically vote (often as a negative vote to prevent an undesirable outcome).
As for “do you believe the polls” BS, conservatives never seem to anticipate how statements like that can blow up in their faces. It took very little time for cunning Liberal strategists and reporters to spin that around into Trumpish rhetoric about refusal to accept an election outcome that failed to deliver a Conservative government. Poilievre had the right answer, but he should never have been put in the position to have to give one.
I love these Bullshit Bulletins, you guys do a great job of illuminating the blatant BS all around us these days.
Two notes:
1) did the NDP have no BS eruptions this past week? I do get they seem determined to be irrelevant in this election, but there ARE more than two parties out there hustling for votes.
2) regarding the polls, is it churlish to note that virtually the entirety of the American polling community completely beclowned themselves in the most recent election down there? Is it so hard to imagine the same thing could be happening here? We've all seen the indications that this election has a REAL generational divide brewing, and pollsters will be the first to tell you that old-timers are far more active participants in their polling efforts than any other demographic. The polls may indeed be wildly inaccurate, and that is NOT a partisan observation.
In this column you rebuke Mr. Poilievre for treating the MSM poorly and subsequently describe how the vetting of "news" by the MSM may be so poor as to undermine its credibility. The only value in the MSM is entertainment.
The electoral map will likely reflect what another commenter stated, that most voters are in the NDP/LPC camp. Big red with an ugly glob of blue in the middle. I think we can all agree with President Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Whatever the polls, i agree with The Line's takedown of the CPC's policy of making war with the media. Do they not understand who has the final decision what gets printed? I'm old enough to remember the "barbaric practices " brainwave the Party had 10 yrs ago, and how that worked out for them. As a long time Cons supporter let me just say that if this is a repeat of Harper's last campaign, I will be parking my membership support until the kids running the party get all growed up!!
It's hard to fully believe the polls when they show such a difference day to day and across the different polling companies, but they do make it easy to see trends, and those trends show that there has been a BIG shift towards the Liberals from the NDP, and a smaller shift from the Cons to Libs.
From media coverage, and I'll admit I'm a biased Conservative voter from Calgary, it appears to much of the same this time around. There's a tweet going around showing the CBC difference in how they've reported Con vs Lib crime announcements, and it's fairly telling. I'm shocked that Carney hasn't been challenged at all by the MM, they are seemingly in love with him. Again, biased, but it seems like every question Pierre gets is a "gotcha" style question, where Carney gets more softballs. I haven't seen anything outside of The Line mentioning the "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism", and this seems like such radical policy, especially in the anti-tariff mindset most Canadians find themselves in. And don't get me started on the missed opportunity here for Pierre. Maybe it's being held for the debate?
Carney is also being let off the hook by the MM, and Canadian, for his party selfishly shutting down government for their own need to grasp onto power. If this was the Conservatives who had done this we'd never hear the end of it. It's not even mentioned during this campaign.
Lastly, but related, is the media seems to have galvanized on the opinion that Trump's actions must be met with counter tariffs and force, the "bullies only understand force" argument. They have been happy to cast Doug Ford the superhero and Danielle Smith the traitor, though both just seem to have different strategies of dealing with the tariffs. I'm not arguing in favor of Smith here, but I do think we need to put a little more understanding in the different ways of dealing with the crisis, and not just groupthinking our way into a confrontation with Trump that only seems to serve the Liberal's ambition.
Oh yah, the prorogation thing would be howled about for decades if the Conservatives did it under these circumstances. Swap the parties around and Liberal and media heads would be exploding and this would be a major election issue. Harper's use of this is still controversial and criticized, and it was shorter and used for far less dramatic effect.
There's an argument to be made, and will increasingly be made, that Trudeau basically used this to steal an election. But look at the TV screen and everyone is treating this as totally normal and acceptable, and memory holed like everything unfavourable that Liberals did more than a week ago.
I do believe the polls to the extent that I don't think the pollsters are lying or manipulating data (except possibly Frank Graves whom most aggregators seem to have rightly dropped). Clearly it's not fair or helpful to believe polls when they are in your favour and become a conspiracy level skeptic when they aren't.
However I do think it's possible that there is a certain type of person who is more likely to take polls regardless of their other demographic characteristics, who disproportionately parked their vote with the Conservatives in 2024 and now disproportionately moved Liberal. I'm not one of these people for example. I tend to hang up on pollsters who call my phone, assume text polls are scammers, and once I tried signing up for an online panel out of curiosity and ended up being spammed with so many useless nonsense surveys that I quit after like three days. Is my opposite a key swing demographic? Hard to say.
For the record, I think CPC turnout will add a few points to their column but I doubt it will be enough to overcome a collapse in NDP, Green, and Bloc vote, the former two of which don't even seem to be trying. Those leads in Ontario and Quebec would take a ton of polling error to overcome.
The reality is the Liberals used every lever of power at their disposal and timed this election just right to tilt it in their favour. This is the really concerning part and I'm still processing what that means for our democracy.
Liberals have been bad news for Canadian democracy since their rabidly anticonservative hysteria really starting in the early 2000's. Now, the damage the Liberals have done to the fundamentals of Canadian democracy since then is increasingly and blatantly obvious.
I've never seen a government do such shady shit to cling to power as the Trudeau/Carney regime. Even in the US, which for all its flaws, is much further from becoming a one-party state than we are.
It's like the Liberals know that if anyone ever becomes able to peer under the rug half of them will be going to jail for all those missing/misappropriated funds during Covid. Another election non-issue for our memory-impaired public and media!
Rally sizes and polls are two sides of the same coin - both are generally predictive of the direction of trends, and should not be relied upon for anything more than that.
That being said, any political party would rather be ahead in both those metrics than behind. The fact that it is right now split between the two parties is what is facilitating all kinds of narrative framing in the mainstream and social media - including in this column.
Bunch of things here.
I know everyone has a bias and you’re correct, perhaps the complaints about the drop in the polls are just sour grapes. However, I don’t think you’re looking at the right things here. But let’s do a little test to verify, can you do this?
1/ Perhaps Jenn can shout downstairs and ask – Where are polls conducted? If the answer is “Online” (whatever that means). Then the results can be affected by AI bots. China has one of the most sophisticated AI systems in the world. I’m not saying they are, but they could be, and the Liberal campaign keeps having inconvenient connections to China.
Or if they are on Social media platforms, which social media platforms? BlueSky will get you a different result than Truth Social. And AI can still affect the polls running there.
And if polls are run “online” how do you know your polling Mrs. Somebody in LeftOvershoe Alberta? Because they self identified? Or IP? That can be spoofed with a VPN.
The question “Can the polls be trusted?” is a valid question in this election.
2/ You’re defending the media. Commendable. Your entirely correct that Conservatives should never have gone to war with a barrel of ink. BUT – Judy Trinh just got off the Liberal plane. Given the hyper partisan nature of this election, perhaps she shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have asked questions over another reporter. No respect for her profession there. Then she goes off on her scorched earth twitter campaign. That won’t be forgotten. I have no sympathy. She put her head in the Lions mouth, and he bit down. Boo Hoo.
3/ Apart from stars like you and Jenn, and a small number spread around, most journalists are not the cream of any crop. So, anything that is easy gets printed. Police, Fire and Paramedics give handouts and there are almost verbatim printed. All this is well known about the news profession. BUT – Is AI being used here? You know ChatGPT can be used to slant a story in a direction. Did this story get run thru an AI? ChatGPT that you can access is 4 generations old. Is the news being manipulated by a foreign actor?
I am seeing worrying signs of something happening, but like most good ops, nothing you can put your finger on. I have begun to suspect that we are in the first AI run misinformation campaign. Who is the puppet master? Will it work? And what’s the end game?
Am I the only one who heard Laura Stone ask Poilievre, "does size matter?" in a nudge-nudge-wink-wink kind of way? I don't think Mr P could have gone in too many directions after that.
Talk about crowd size among party leaders and followers is basically just a way to get more people excited about going to such events (although some like me probably try avoid such large crowds).
And polls should always be taken with a grain of salt. It's good to read the details about sample size. Even better is reviewing the actual questions. How leading are they? What are the response choices? If Carny wins, this weeks polls will be right. If he loses, they won't be. Polls schmolls. (That said, I do always look at polls with interest. I just know their limitations). I think polls make some people stay home on election day ("what's the point of voting? My guy is winning/losing") and make some stay-at-homers get off their ass to vote ("Wow, we can still win!"). Parties are using polls to rally the troops. It is what it is.
It seems like bullshit to me that Carney is referred to as The Prime Minister in the press solely because he identifies as The Prime Minister and his pronouns are The Prime Minister/The Prime Minister. Wiki: "The prime minister (currently Mark Carney) is the head of government, who is invited by the Crown to form a government after securing the confidence of the House of Commons..." Bit of a contradiction there.
It seems like bullshit to me that Carney keeps goading Trump because he wants a trade war to help him with the election, with no consideration of how it will effect negotiations later.
I disagree with The Line's suggestion Poilievre should have pivoted to the Trump issue for the election. He has done and is doing the correct things: promoting interprovincial trade and expanded non-US trade. The one thing he is not doing is trying to piss of Trump in the hope of a getting a mention on Truth Social. Carney is baiting Trump while showing no indication of improving our non-US trade. He supports east-west pipelines but will not get rid of C-69. He promises to dovetail federal and provincial environmental reviews to speed up approvals, but has no control over the provincial reviews and has promised not to change the federal reviews.
the entire piece reads like - Media is great, it's your fault if you fail, we are great and the best! Well, media has huge influence on normal people, way stronger influence than a political leader. defending but not reflecting oneself raises more questions.
We have spent 5 years offering pretty consistent and measured crticism of the media.
If a single piece that fails to affirm your anger and instead asks you to consider whether the CPC is scapegoating to deflect from their own failures is enough to trigger your psychological defences -- you aren't actually looking for real journalism on this subject. You're looking for writing that makes you feel better about your priors. There is a lot of activist "media" out there that will cater to your needs. Best of luck. JG
What an astonishingly rude, evasive, and gratuitously ad hominem response to a pertinent observation. How do you know the observation was prompted by anger, or what Ninjamonk may or may not be “looking for;” and what does Ninjamonk's psychological state (or for that matter your own) have to do with whether or not the observation is warranted? What relevance could your record of criticism over five years or any other time interval possibly have for the question of whether or not you're on target in this particular article? Defendant: “I've never committed such an infraction before, your Honour; therefore I can't be held culpable this time.” Judge: “Decision for the plaintiff. Thirty days!”
Finding for the plaintiff in this case requires not anger but a simple respect for evidence. We can debate the wisdom of the Conservatives' response to legacy media hostility, of course; but attributing any part of that hostility to a choice on the part of conservatives to make enemies of the press is preposterous. Even I can see that conservatives' longstanding adversarial relationship with Canada's legacy media was this media's default position to begin with, and I've always voted NDP. Ninjamonk won't need to stray far to encounter “activist” media; we're enveloped by it.
I'm more concerned that this piece affirms my anger and wonder if that's a good thing. What if this further tees me up to becoming even more rant-y? I mean, do I need even more people to step away from me at social gatherings when a rant takes full flight?
I would consider buying a founder's subscription if it included Jenn showing up once a year to a social gathering of my choice and effectively being my rant-by-proxy. All of the rant, but none of the social stigma (at least for me)!
I'm just saying the Frank Grimes/Howard Beale imitator at a party never gets the girl.
I didn't really understand the "CBC just used CP's headline so it was OK" argument. CP did a shitty thing and CBC only copied it shouldn't be an excuse. Especially since the CBC should be able to spare the resources to have a quick glance at imported content. In fact, I would wager that CBC did vet the headline.
I’ll say this about the “it’s automated” defence on the CBC / Canadian Press issue…
That’s no defence.
Every news org outs responsible for what they publish. If they’re automatically publishing without review, THAT’S A CHOICE. And we’re all responsible for the consequences of your own choices.
Trying to pass the buck is whiny weaseling.
And if CP wrote the headline, and not CBC, it is still an example of biased media.
I do believe the polls. But, we all know about the only one that matters. Here’s a snippet from Bloomberg way back in 1993:
`Campbell Mania' Could Keep Canada's Tories On Top
By William C. Symonds
April 25, 1993 at 10:00 PM MDT
Just two months ago, Canada's ruling Progressive Conservative Party appeared headed for a crushing defeat in this year's national elections, with support mired at less than 20%. But since Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Feb. 24 announcement that he would not run again, his party has enjoyed a spectacular resurrection. Although some surveys now point to a tight race, a new Gallup Canada poll shows that if the Tories select Defense Minister Kim Campbell as their new leader, they will win a startling 50% of the vote, vs. only 29% for the opposition Liberals.
Unfortunately for her, Kim Campbell wasn't shameless enough to time her election for the middle of her polling bump and a convenient crisis. Carney would suffer a similar fate if the election were held a few months from now. Jesus, look at his shambolic energy-free and info-free campaign. He's being carried by the angels because the man himself is a lead anchor.
I sincerely hope the polls are wrong because Mark Carney would be really really bad for Canada.
You and me both.
I don't think the trustworthiness of polling data used - or those who do the polling tabulations - is at issue. I suspect the criticism raised about 'trusting' the polls - and I may be wrong - is about whether or not polls actually reflect what's (probably) true.
We know polls reflect the data collected. But we also know they often don't reflect what's actually true (for many reasons, not least of which is someone basically lying to the pollsters)! I also think one might be hard pressed to find someone unaware of how poorly polls have on occasion reflected actual voter preferences on voting day in the US at the federal level and have probably seen or heard from those shocked and surprised when real world results differ - sometimes significantly (I can remember the widespread shock in 2016 when Hillary lost to The Donald and the surprise that the sun actually rose the following day). It is becoming less rare that voting tallies reveal something quite different than what had been projected based on polling data and for all voters to remember this when considering polls and their predictive value when asked to cast a ballot.
I find this article a little naive. When media stops being subsidized by government they will gain more credibility. As for individual reporters, they all have their deadlines, and on a slow news cycle tend towards creating the story. I agree Laura Stone is a gem of a reporter. I have mixed views on Judy Trinh. Maybe it’s because she works for CTV and is styled as an ‘investigative reporter’ and my bias is showing. I’m in the camp that CBC, CTV and Global have been tarnished with the Liberal media subsidy brush for the last few years with unbalanced reporting against Conservatives and gung-ho on Trudeau’s Liberals. It’s only now that Liberals and Conservatives are in a dead heat that they see the writing on the wall and are trying to add more balance.
I used to enjoy reading your reports but surprised at your 'bullshit' comments about Pierre and the CPC. I'm starting to think you're both closet Liberals. Interesting you didn't identify Trinh as a Liberal reporter similar to David Atkins. I had to get that fact from another comment. Everyone knows how biased the mainstream media is, very disappointing to find it here from an independent source. And another commenter is right on the money that had the Conservatives pulled the stunts the LIBS had in shutting down Parliament first to avoid a non-confidence vote, then to install a new undemocratically chosen leader, and crowned PM we would never hear the end of it.
Pollsters love a horse race and they certainly have one to adjudicate over this time.
I admit that I have reservations about pollsters in general who seem to bathe themselves in unearned importance by looking at poll numbers and trends and telling us what we should read from statistics. In a true horse race, nobody gives a shit what the horses ate before the race. Also, many voters do their own thing anyway, especially those voters who look at raw numbers and strategically vote (often as a negative vote to prevent an undesirable outcome).
As for “do you believe the polls” BS, conservatives never seem to anticipate how statements like that can blow up in their faces. It took very little time for cunning Liberal strategists and reporters to spin that around into Trumpish rhetoric about refusal to accept an election outcome that failed to deliver a Conservative government. Poilievre had the right answer, but he should never have been put in the position to have to give one.
I love these Bullshit Bulletins, you guys do a great job of illuminating the blatant BS all around us these days.
Two notes:
1) did the NDP have no BS eruptions this past week? I do get they seem determined to be irrelevant in this election, but there ARE more than two parties out there hustling for votes.
2) regarding the polls, is it churlish to note that virtually the entirety of the American polling community completely beclowned themselves in the most recent election down there? Is it so hard to imagine the same thing could be happening here? We've all seen the indications that this election has a REAL generational divide brewing, and pollsters will be the first to tell you that old-timers are far more active participants in their polling efforts than any other demographic. The polls may indeed be wildly inaccurate, and that is NOT a partisan observation.
We're still two weeks from an election too. Even if we believe today's polls, what's the point? You don't sit back and go, well now, it's decided.
In this column you rebuke Mr. Poilievre for treating the MSM poorly and subsequently describe how the vetting of "news" by the MSM may be so poor as to undermine its credibility. The only value in the MSM is entertainment.
The electoral map will likely reflect what another commenter stated, that most voters are in the NDP/LPC camp. Big red with an ugly glob of blue in the middle. I think we can all agree with President Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Whatever the polls, i agree with The Line's takedown of the CPC's policy of making war with the media. Do they not understand who has the final decision what gets printed? I'm old enough to remember the "barbaric practices " brainwave the Party had 10 yrs ago, and how that worked out for them. As a long time Cons supporter let me just say that if this is a repeat of Harper's last campaign, I will be parking my membership support until the kids running the party get all growed up!!