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Canadians Have Worsening View of Politicians, New Poll Says |
| Source: |
thestar.com |
| Source Date: |
Friday, March 09, 2012 |
| Focus: |
ICT for MDGs
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| Country: |
Canada |
| Created: |
Mar 12, 2012 |
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OTTAWA—Growing cynicism among Canadians about politicians and political tactics like robocalls is casting a shadow over a major conference of Conservative party organizers, activists and thinkers here.
First there was news from a poll conducted for the Manning Centre conference that showed more and more Canadians view politicians as “unprincipled,” and doubt the government’s ability to solve the big issues of the day.
Then there was a stern warning about unethical practices from the conference’s founder Preston Manning, the past Reform party leader who once mentored Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Manning said there is a clear need to rein in political campaigners who would exploit new technologies to conduct dirty tricks, and called for more ethical and legal training for campaign managers and supervisors, as well as greater powers for Elections Canada.
Manning said the current “robocall” scandal and allegations of vote suppression tactics are “deplorable,” and threaten to deepen Canadians’ negative perception of politicians of all stripes.
He said it’s a mistake to think “dirty tricks” are limited to any one party. Right now, he said, the public view is “bordering on contempt . . . . The public hardly distinguishes between them. When these things are done, it just discredits them.”
This event, which draws several cabinet ministers, has become a parallel, unofficial Conservative convention aimed at increasing the party’s electoral strength. There was much talk devoted to how to boost the party’s vote among new Canadians, “bread-and-butter” Canadians, “urban greens” and trade-union workers who share small-c conservative values.
A year into a majority Conservative government, the mood here should be jubilant.
But much of the chatter in hallways is somber, with many wondering what exactly might happened with allegations of voter suppression expanding to several ridings beyond Guelph, and Elections Canada probing 31,000 calls from Canadians.
One former Conservative party candidate who ran in Newfoundland in 2004 went to a microphone to say many people he meets “think conservatively,” but are turned off by aggressive Conservative political branding tactics.
“When you get into the political stuff and the branding, that’s where I lose them,” he told the crowd. “When you get into the political piece that I think we’re stuck — we’re having some trouble.”
Pollster André Turcotte told the audience the worsening view of politicians overall should be a warning flag to Conservatives and to the government, because it increases their doubts government can resolve the big challenges of the day.
Billed as a barometer of the Conservative movement in Canada, the survey compared data over the past 30 years, and showed a “small but steady” movement of Canadian public opinion towards the right, says Turcotte.
Political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former senior adviser to Manning and to Harper, disagreed.
Flanagan said Canadians are more willing to accept the Conservative party as a governing party “but that’s quite different from inferring that there is an ideological shift in the population at large.”
At the same time, Flanagan said he doesn’t think that Canada’s become “a less conservative country. I think it’s become a more polarized country.”
There was another warning in data Turcotte presented here. It showed that Conservatives have a strong “brand image” as “fiscally responsible” among themselves and the general public, but the public also sees Conservatives as “close-minded and self-serving,” said Turcotte.
The poll, based on an online survey based on 2,067 online interviews between Feb. 10-20, 2012. It has a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Canadians Have Worsening View of Politicians, New Poll Says Growing cynicism among Canadians about politicians and political tactics like robocalls is casting a shadow over a major conference of Conservative party organizers activists and thinkers here
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