Surveys and Tasers and Elections, oh my!

The phone rang. Apparently the entire province of Ontario wanted to talk to me - at least that's what the caller ID said. I was curious who it was so I picked up.

"Hello I'm <someone> from <some company I forget>. Would you like to participate in a 10-minute survey on topics concerning British Columbians?"

"Alright", I said.

Lori wasn't home and I was just going to warm something up in the microwave so I had time to kill. I figured it'd be worthwhile since I estimate my answers represent probably 1,000 opinions. Over the course of the survey I was asked all sorts of questions concerning general transportation, the Port Mann bridge expansion, tasers (mentioning Robert Dziekanski specifically), provincial elections, federal elections, women-only election ridings, privatizing government, the RCMP, the selling and leasing back of government buildings, Indian land claim settlements and BC Hydro. There were probably a few more that I forget but those illustrate the general nature of the survey.

During the survey I could tell the client paying for the survey had some obvious biases. For example, most of the transportation questions may as well have been written by a Greenpeace activist who only rides public transit and has never held a real job or owned a car. I countered by strongly agreeing that the Port Mann needs to be expanded and that public transportation is not the holy grail the tree-huggers keep insisting it is.

After the survey I got my warm food and headed upstairs to look up some of the issues it raised that I was not aware of. About half an hour later the phone rang again.

"UNKNOWN NAME 866-751-1872"

I thought it was odd that an 866 number was calling me so I picked up.

"Hello, we're conducting a survey on topics concerning Canadians. Could I speak to a person in the household 18 years or older?"

Well, isn't this odd. I thought that maybe the first company screwed up and called me again but the number was too different.

"That's me" I answered.

I was eating, so I didn't take kindly to being interrupted but I had to find out if this was the same survey or just a weird coincidence. It could've been the same with its large overlap of topics but it had some oddball ones thrown in for good measure: federal elections, the RCMP, window and door caulking, tasers (also mentioning Robert Dziekanski), Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber, alcohol, leaded Chinese toys and the obligatory household income question. The questions were also worded much differently.

"On behalf of Ipsos Reid, thank-you for participating". A-ha! That was not the same company as the first one. It seemed as though one survey was paid for by a political party currently holding office and the other one was paid for by their opposition. It made me laugh that if that were the case I could've given two completely different answers thereby either supporting both or opposing both - but I didn't. They both got the same, boring answers.

If the Port Mann bridge gets twinned, the government doesn't privatize its environmental work, Canada pays closer attention to toy safety and the police end their "Tase Everyone" campaign, I will take sole credit.

Update, Nov 26: As John Wright commented below, here's the story "starting tomorrow" quoting the Ipsos Reid survey: Canadians split on Taser moratorium. It even mentions Mr. Wright by name so I believe his comments below are genuine.

Update, Nov 26: Google News found me a story published today quoting the survey: Liberals narrowing gap with Tories: poll.