January 4, 2010 12:01 PM By Kady O'Malley
Buried near the end of this recent Canadian Press story on the PM's decision to prorogue Parliament was this tantalizing read of the public reaction so far, courtesy of Harris Decima pollster Doug Anderson:
His feeling is echoed privately by Tory MPs, and by a poll showing that 46 per cent of Canadians just don't care whether Parliament starts sitting in January or takes a break and comes back after the Olympics in March.
"There's a high level of indifference," said pollster Doug Anderson with Harris Decima.
Predictably, your humble blogger immediately perked up. A poll? On prorogation? Ooh! More details, please! Alas, the survey in question did not appear to be posted on the Harris Decima site, but one pleading email to Anderson later, I had a copy of my very own - and the results, it turned out, were far more interesting than the offhand reference in the CP story would suggest.
The poll (pdf) itself, it's worth noting -- actually, it's worth putting in bold italics, possibly underlined, and maybe even breaking out the blink -- was taken between December 17th and 20th, well before the prime minister -- or rather, his press secretary -- confirmed that he would, indeed, be asking the governor general to prorogue parliament until March 3, which means that at the time, respondents were reacting to the theory that he might do so, rather than the fact that he had. Would the numbers be any different now that the deed is done? I guess we'll have to wait for the next batch of polls to find out.
In the meantime, here are a few interesting tidbits from the hypothetical questioning, which comes with a margin of error of 3.1 percent:
Amongst the 49 percent of respondents who held an opinion other than "meh" on the prospect of prorogation, the percentage of those who told the pollster that they would be "unhappy" is more than twice that who said they would be "happy" to see the backs of parliamentarians until after the Olympics: 34 percent to 15 percent.
Not surprisingly, opposition party supporters were more likely to say they would be unhappy, but their lack of enthusiasm was shared by 25 percent of Conservative supporters, which is three points higher than the percentage who gave the idea a putative thumbs up, and just two points lower than the number of Bloc Quebecois supporters who were against it. (Which makes sense, really, since Bloc Quebecois voters are unlikely to hold particularly warm and fuzzy feelings towards anything connected to the federal government.)
Finally, when cross-checked against responses on the decision to prorogue Parliament in 2008, only half of those who agreed that he made the right call last time around said they would be happy if he did so again, with 25 percent predicting that they would be unhappy -- coincidentally, the same percentage of Conservative supporters who feel the same way. The upshot? Although a plurality of respondents greeted the possibility with indifference, those who did not were more likely to be disgruntled than delighted by the move, which was, I should point out again, at that point purely speculative. You have to wonder whether this isn't a potentially dangerous metric for the prime minister, at least in the short term, since it seems reasonable to assume that those who hold strong views -- or any view at all beyond benign apathy -- over whether the House should or shouldn't take a two month break are more likely to take their opinions to the ballot box. After all, it suggests at least a modest degree of engagement with the political process, which would seem to make one more likely to vote. It will also be fascinating to see whether the anti-prorogation agitation currently underway -- most of which, at the moment, appears to be virtual, and of the Facebook group/e-petition variety -- does manage to turns into real world protests, complete with rallies and even the possibility of a gathering of the "parliament of the willing," as NDP MP Bruce Hyer described it to the Globe and Mail's Gloria Galloway. (Cue the explosion of comments about the lurking menace of Coalition v1.5 under the leadership of Ignatieff-usurper Bob Rae. Just a note, y'all: they wouldn't actually be able to do anything other than pose for the cameras and ask pointed questions in the direction of Langevin Block, so no need to stock up on canned goods just yet.)
So, can anyone else extract more enlightenment from the Harris Decima-provided entrails? Share and enjoy!
