Canadians want strict security, poll finds.
11 August 2005, late morning
The Globe and Mail published an article today on Canadians’ desires for a more ‘secure’ society: Canadians want strict security, poll finds. I need to look in to this more, since the poll results seem so contrary to what I would expect.
Even after this Arar mess, “62 per cent of respondents believe Canada should give the U.S. ‘any information they request about Canadian citizens whom they suspect of being terrorists.’” What? Who were they polling?
81% of the respondents support “Deporting or jailing anyone who publicly supports terrorists or suicide bombers.” Well, that probably describes the vast majority of the Tamil community in Canada — assuming the LTTE are still on Canada’s terrorism list. From what I can tell, many Iranian immigrants in Canada support the MEK. Canadians polled seem to think is is reasonable to ship these people back home? Also, with respect to the wording of the question, when would a suicide bomber not be considered a terrorist?
72% of people want video cameras filming public spaces? What demographic wants to live in a police state? Apparently some demographic I didn’t know existed in Canada.
I don’t know why I’m getting worked up over a poll. Can you feel my righteous indignation? I need a coke.
ed. I made this a proper post, not just a quick link.
CTV also used the data from the poll: Canadians split on anti-terror measures.
by ramanan on August 11 2005, 5:31 pm #
Move to Australia. Oh wait..
by Sunny on August 12 2005, 1:40 am #
The Strategic Counsel poll is based on interviews with 1,000 Canadians conducted between Aug. 3 and 7. A sample of that size is considered to have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
1000 is such a round number and is a few dozen short of the number of people that they (statistically) need to survey to get a .95-confidence interval. I always wonder whether the new media dumbs down the numbers (and rounds it to 1000) or if the pollsters dumb it down by coming up slightly short make it easier for the media.
by Ryan on August 12 2005, 2:04 am #