And the survey says ... (Part 2)

Jeff Green | Dec 07, 2016

Last week, the governing Liberal Party of Canada received a comprehensive, detailed all party report on electoral reform which presents them with a set of options that they are not willing to undertake, including holding a referendum on electoral reform. In response, their representative to the special committee on electoral reform released a minority report which said that a referendum is not the way to go and that there is not enough time between now and the next election to put a new system in place. Therefore the promise made by Justin Trudeau in the election campaign of 2015,  “if we are elected to form government, this will be the last Canadian election that uses to first past the post electoral system,” cannot be kept.

At the same time, the Minister Responsible for Electoral Reform, Maryam Monsef launched a survey, online and elsewhere, to find out what Canadians think about issues of governance.
I filled it out today. The first bunch of questions makes statements and then asks survey subjects to indicate whether they strongly agree, somewhat agree, are neutral, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree. Later questions make statements and offer yes or no alternatives.

The survey tends to go over the same ground numerous times, which is frustrating. It asks if  eligible voters “should be fined if they do not vote”, and later it asks if “eligible voters should not be forced to vote”. Is this some kind of test to see if we are paying attention? Are they testing the strength of our opinion, or what?

The survey also asks questions that I did not want to answer. For example - “Members of Parliament should reflect the diversity of Canadian society, even if it means putting in place special measures to increase the representation of certain groups.” I don’t think diversity in Parliament, which I wholeheartedly support, should require special measures. What we need is a fair system that removes barriers to participation. If we need “special measures” then we have failed to come up with the best electoral system in the first place. We don’t need tokenism, we need democratic reform.

The survey asks if Canadian’s should have the option to vote online several times. Once it asks is online voting is acceptable even if it makes the voting system less secure, and then it asks if online voting is acceptable even if it makes elections more expensive. It also asks we think online voting would result in an increased turnout.

In fact we have had experience with online voting in this region on a municipal level, and it saves money, and has not resulted in any security issues with the voting system. It also, and this has been a surprise to some, not resulted in an increase in turnout.

In almost all other areas, the survey asks similar questions in different ways. The data analysts who designed it likely have their reasons, but it feels as if we are not being given enough credit for our ability to know our own minds. It feels like a test of our democratic intelligence rather than an opinion survey.

Then, when it is all done, the survey tells us what type we are. We are all either cooperators, guardians, pragmatists, challengers, or Innovators. What this means and why we are being categorized and how this is relevant I do not know, but is comforting that our government has decided to delve into personality types in order to turn consultation into something that feels more and more like a mindless Facebook survey you might fill out to kill time. I will say this, at least they did not assign Lord of the Rings characters to each of the types, but then again that might have been more fun.

The survey also includes an invitation to share results on Twitter and Facebook,  and to “join the conversation online” at #engagedinER or #mydemocracy.

According to the government, the survey has been in the planning stages for several months and has nothing to do with their decision to reject the key recommendations of the committee that they tasked with advising them on how to bring about electoral reform.

However, as MP Scott Reid pointed out, the url Mydemocracy.ca was only purchased on October 24th. It could be that the url was one of the last things that was done in preparation for launching this survey, for this survey, or it could be that the survey is intended to distract attention from the fact that the electoral reform issue has become a loser for the Trudeau government.

It could also be that the government has realised, shortly into their mandate, that a new electoral system is not their safest path to re-election in three year’s time.

I wrote an editorial a few weeks ago that questioned the efficacy of a survey by Frontenac County. The difference between that survey and this one is that while the data gathered by the Frontenac survey may have limited value for a variety of reasons, it was an honest effort at finding out what Frontenac residents think. This electoral survey strikes me as a purely political exercise masquerading as online engagement in the social media age.

Click here to read Part 1