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August Poll Soup: Dog Days of August Edition
I try not to get too worked up over summertime polls. Canadians aren’t thinking about politics, and even a barrage of Census news stories isn’t going to change their vote intent much. At least not right away. After all, people are at their cottages and drinking lemonade. They have better things to do than talk […]
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Issue Management
In all the pages and pages of Census e-mails and documents released Tuesday, the excerpt above is probably the most telling. Just 2 days before the Census changes were made public, an internal Communications Plan was circulated proclaiming “These changes will not have a negative impact on the quality of the Census. Response rates and […]
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7 Weeks Later, Tony Clement Springs Into Action
Actually, his proposed changes are rather meek, designed only to avoid a court challenge: Stung by francophone anger, the Harper government is adding questions on French and English skills to the obligatory short-form 2011 census. It’s a bid to quell the linguistic minority’s fears that scrapping a longer mandatory survey will make it harder to […]
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Tony Clement: Non-mandatory with the truth
Tony Clement, on July 16th: “I asked [Statistics Canada] specifically, ‘Are you confident you can do your job?’ They said ‘If you do these extra things: the extra advertising and the extra sample size, then yes, we can do our job.’ ” […] Mr. Clement said the medical journal and other critics should trust Statistics […]
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Great Moments in Spin
Now: Michael Ignatieff’s principal secretary and top Quebec aide quit because the Liberal Leader doesn’t know the province “from Minnesota,” Stephen Harper’s strategists say. The gloating memo, sent to Tory MPs and supporters Monday, was inspired by the departure of Jean-Marc Fournier. A former member of Quebec’s National Assembly, he left Jean Charest’s government in […]
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Well that was quick…
11:00 am today: Conservatives slip, Liberals gain: poll 1:12 pm today: Tories rebound after mid-summer slump, hold six-point lead: poll
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Being Tony Clement
Tony Clement, explaining the government’s census logic: “Yeah, there are groups that are upset” about the government’s decision, Clement told reporters. “Hey, listen, they had a good deal going,” he added. “They got good, quality data and the government of Canada was the heavy.” Realizing fewer people will fill out a voluntary form, the government […]
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Shuffle
Baird to house leader. Strahl to transport. Duncan to Indian Affairs. Not much to see here. The PM trusts Baird, but we already knew that.
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Rerun Season
Brett Favre retires, Bristol and Levi break up, and John Tory announces he’s not running for mayor of Toronto.