And, they’re off! We appear to be on the eve of a federal election call which, if past trends hold, will be covered by the media using the same old horse-race methodology (not to mention the same old horse-race terminology). Instead of giving Canadians a clear idea of what issues are at stake and where the different political parties stand on those issues, the media can be expected to focus almost exclusively on who is ahead, who is gaining and who is falling behind.

Some political reporters have at least recognized the problem, with at least one prominent reporter even vowing to do something about it. CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Craig Oliver has said, “I hope this will be an election in which content will be more important than the contest. And I think voters are gonna force it to be, because there’s such a state of high anxiety out there. People are worried about their jobs and their livelihood, and they want to find out who might offer them some answers to meet those concerns. They’re gonna want specifics. They’re gonna want concrete, they’re gonna watch issues, I think, this time around, very closely.”

Unfortunately, Oliver uttered these words prior to the 1993 campaign. Three federal campaigns have passed since then (1993, 1997 and 2000) with little sign that CTV or other media outlets are heeding this brave call for a focus on issues.

Antonia Zerbisias, who covers media issues for The Toronto Star, recently called the continuing fixation on polls “a lazy example of news trolling. Political reporters seem to be pre-occupied more than ever with polls — as in are the Liberals up and the Conservatives down? Is the Bloc back big time in Quebec? Will the NDP surge under Jack Layton?… Journalists know polls are not good journalism, nor are they good for journalism,” writes Zerbisias. “But we just can’t help ourselves. We’re like addicts. Just one more poll. One more headline. Then, then, we’ll quit. For sure. This time. We’ll go straight. Clean. Cold turkey. Honest. And we wonder why Canadians’ eyes glaze over?”

Polls can and do make a difference in how political parties operate. For example, after polls consistently showed that health care was the number one concern for Canadians, NDP strategists decided that the party’s 2000 federal election campaign would focus almost entirely on this one single issue. What they didn’t understand, in my opinion, is that there is a vast difference between something being the most important issue and being the only issue that voters want to hear about. Thankfully, Jack Layton is taking a much more well-rounded approach to campaigning, and has even released a book detailing his views on a wide variety of issues facing Canadians.

Of course, poll results are also a key factor in determining when we go to the polls. Like Jacques Parizeau, Paul Martin wants us to vote only when there are “winning conditions” for him. The absurd guessing game that preceded the 2003 Ontario election is now being repeated by the scandal-plagued Liberals, to the point where many of us who were once skeptical about fixed election dates are now ready to embrace them.

I like reading polls as much as the next political junkie, but I’m not content with simply knowing the numbers for each party. I want to know the questions asked and when they were asked, the sample size and methodology, the regional breakdowns, and the trends from previous polls by the same pollster (as comparing polls from different pollsters is a meaningless exercise). I would urge anyone paying attention to polls to apply the same rigorous analysis — or, failing that, to simply ignore them.

Naturally, I’m particularly fond of poll results that seem to favour my own political party of choice, the NDP (like last week’s Compas poll that showed the party breaking the 20 per cent barrier for the first time since the 1988 election). I’m also frustrated when media coverage of polls fails to emphasize the fact that the NDP has more than doubled its support from the 2000 election, while the united right is polling at roughly the same level as the Alliance did in 2000 (before the Progressive Conservatives were — theoretically at least — added in).

But, taking a healthy interest in poll results is much different from making them the sole focus of media attention. Canadians need some meaningful information about parties and policies, instead of merely being told who is leading and who doesn’t have a chance to win. If they get that information, I dare say that some them may even change their mindsâe¦ and their votes.

As Zerbisias notes, “all this obsessing over polls must be alienating ordinary Canadians whose voter turnout rates are already dipping dangerously low. And if media types don’t believe that, they should take a poll on it.”

picture-2299.jpg

Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...