Over the course of this month, the Abacus Insider has been focused on topics related to energy.  Last week, David wrote about Canadian’s positive and negative perceptions of various forms of energy generation based on an Abacus Data national poll conducted in September.  Although, as David pointed out, Canadians had a relatively clear perceptual hierarchy of various means of energy generation in terms of environmental impact, there was less clarity in terms of cost and impact on health and safety. In the survey, respondents were asked to rank a range of different power generation methods from most to least expensive and environmentally friendly – the results are shown in the table below in the form of mean scores for each energy type.  Scores closer to one were ranked higher, while scores closer to seven were ranked lower. The interesting finding here, particularly on the issue of cost, was the lack of differentiation between mean scores.  When asked about how expensive each method of generating electricity was, there was almost no consensus amongst Canadians.  Many of the decisions we make in our lives are influenced by actual or perceived costs; from the simple choice of which brand of cereal to buy, right through to opinions on major public policy issues like health care and education, our perception of costs help to inform our points of view. Although the average Canadian may not be expected to know the relative cost differences between means of power generation, or even the environmental impact (note that Canadians ranked nuclear and coal as having nearly identical environmental impacts), these findings led me to consider what else Canadians may not know about when it comes to electricity. Think about some of the headlines related to energy you may have seen recently. ...

Social media have evolved at a pace faster than any other communication technologies that have come before them. In some sectors the impact and reach of social channels can be felt on the bottom line. In other arenas, such as public affairs, measuring impact is more complex. Together with MediaStyle and Full Duplex, Abacus Data conducted a national survey of 1,000 Canadians aged 18 and over to find out: How do Canadians engage politically with social media? Our findings were somewhat surprising and can be read in detail in the report we released earlier today on our website OpinionShaping.ca. The report demonstrates that is it is a mistake to ignore traditional media when trying to reach Canadians on a given topic. In most instances information deemed trustworthy that is shared and distributed over social media usually references established sources. Credibility is generally anchored in reputable institutions, such as media, academia and yes, even government. Why? Only 9% of Canadians rely on social media as their primary source for news. Television, online news media and print still dominate as the primary news source for Canadians. Most Canadians who are getting some news through social media said they haven’t changed their opinion as a result of something they have seen online. Only 16% of Canadians believe that social media are suitable platforms for political engagement. But this doesn’t mean that advocacy groups, industry associations, and other groups or individuals active in public affairs should ignore social media. Our survey confirms what we have believed for sometime – social media are not the best way to reach Canadians directly but are important channels for forming opinions and setting context for mainstream news. The new element is how news is formed and the role online social channels play in influencing the coverage journalists, pundits and opinion-shapers give to different issues. Journalists...

The debate over Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is heating up again in the United States.  Some legislators in Washington want to defund the program while President Obama is on a campaign to increase support for the legislation that was passed almost two years ago. Today, CNBC released the results of a survey which shows that Americans are quite divided when it comes to defunding Obama’s landmark health care reform.  Forty-four percent of those they surveyed oppose defunding Obamacare while 38% support it. But the same survey also conducted an experiment using different titles of the healthcare law – comparing how Americans respond to “Obamacare” and “Affordable Care Act.” The survey asked a random half of the sample “What are your feelings toward Obamacare? Do you feel very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, very negative, or do you not know enough to say?” while asking the other half “What are your feelings toward the Affordable Care Act? Do you feel very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, very negative, or do you not know enough to say?” When “Obamacare” is used in the survey, 29% of respondents said they have a positive impression compared to 46% who have a negative impression.  When “Affordable Care Act” is used, the percentage of respondents with a positive impression drops to 22%, a seven-point difference while the number of unsure respondents increases to 30%. This demonstrates the importance of using words that work with your audience.  Research can help identify terms and phrases that resonate better with a target audience.  In the case of the Affordable Care Act in the United States, proponents of the act should refer to its a Obamacare since the public responds more positively to it. These results explain why President Obama himself often...

Earlier this month, Abacus Data and VOCM released a poll on vote intentions in the St. John’s Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral elections. Yesterday was Election Day.  Dennis O’Keefe was re-elected as Mayor defeating Sheilagh O’Leary by 15-points while Ron Ellsworth was elected Deputy Mayor defeating Jennifer McCreath by 66-points. Our polling for VOCM performed very well despite it being conducted at the end of August, a full month before Election Day indicating that in aggregate, opinions and intended voting behaviours changed little over the course of the campaign. Our mayoral election poll was off by three points and within the margin of error. The deputy mayor election survey was less accurate but we should keep in mind that Jennifer McCreath had just entered the election around the time the survey was in the field. Methodology The random live-interview telephone survey commissioned by VOCM was conducted with 435 eligible voters living in the City of St. John’s The survey was completed from August 28 to 31, 2013. The margin of error for a probability-based random sample of 435 respondents using a probability sample is +/- 4.8%, 19 times out of 20. The data was statistically weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched St. John’s population.  The tables within this report detail the weighted and unweighted counts for the sample. David Coletto is CEO of Abacus Data and leads its Public Affairs research practice. He has a PhD from the University of Calgary and is an adjunct professor at Carleton University.  He’s an avid road cyclist. Contact David Coletto: T: 613-232-2806 x. 248 E: david@abacusdata.ca W: http://www.abacusdata.ca...

As part of my presentation to the Ontario Energy Association’s ENERGYCONFERENCE13, I asked Canadians about their views on different sources of electricity.  At the conference, I released the results for Ontarians only but I wanted to share what Canadians across the country think about different sources of electricity and how they compare across region, education level, and political support. In this post, I report on two questions we asked: (1) overall impressions of different ways to generate electricity and (2) perceptions about how their province generates electricity. Generally speaking, Canadians have a pretty good understanding of where their electricity comes from.  On average, respondents estimated that 43% of electricity generated in Canada comes from hydroelectric compared with 20% from natural gas and 13% from nuclear. When asked about the different sources of electricity, a large majority of Canadians have a positive impression of hydroelectric, solar, wind, and natural gas generation.  Impressions were more mixed when it comes to nuclear power and only a small minority of Canadians have anything good to say about coal powered electricity generation. Hydroelectric Power Canadians love hydroelectric power and Canadians from across Canada agree on that.  Nationally, 77% of respondents to our survey said they have a positive impression of hydroelectric power compared with only 4% who had a negative impression.  When asked to rank seven sources of electricity from most to least environmentally friendly, 28% of respondents ranked hydro first or second and only 7% ranked it as 1st or 2nd most harmful to health and safety. Hydro power is perceived to be clean, safe, but not as cheap as other sources of electricity.  Canadians recognize the importance of hydroelectric power to Canada’s economy and energy mix and generally have positive feelings about it.  You can’t go wrong...

Download detailed tables A new poll from polling firm Abacus Data finds that Justin Trudeau remains the most popular federal political party leader with 37% of Canadians surveyed saying they have a positive impression of the Liberal Party, down slightly from 39% in June.  NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are viewed positively by 30% and 29% of Canadians respectively. Political Party Leaders: Overall Impressions When respondents were asked to rate their personal impressions of the leaders of the main Canadian political parties, Stephen Harper was the only leader who registered a net negative impression score. After a summer where much news media attention has been on the federal Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau’s net impression score slipped by three percentage points from June, dropping down to +10, still slightly better than Tom Mulcair’s overall net score. A large percentage of Canadians still do not have enough information about Tom Mulcair to form an opinion with 17% saying they were unsure of their impression of the NDP, 11-percentage points higher than Justin Trudeau and 13 percentage points higher than Stephen Harper. Leadership Attributes Survey respondents were also asked whether a number of attributes accurately described each of the three main party leaders in Canada.  Figures in brackets track the change for Trudeau since April 2013 (the last time Abacus asked these questions). Stephen Harper has an advantage when it comes to being qualified to be Prime Minister with 61% of those aware of the Prime Minister agreeing that he is qualified to be Prime Minister.  Another 49% agree that Harper has sound judgement while a majority of respondents who have an opinion agree that he understands the problems facing Canada.  In terms of negative descriptions, 57% of respondents agreed that the Prime...

Download detailed tables A new poll from Abacus Data finds that while interest in the gas plant cancellation controversy has declined since May, a large plurality of Ontarians (48%) believe that the issue is serious enough to warrant a provincial election. Along with questions about the gas plant cancellations, the survey also measured Ontarians knowledge and perceptions about electricity generation in the province.  A majority of respondents (60%) said that their energy bill had increased in the past year while another 29% said their electricity bill had stayed about where it was a year ago.  Furthermore, Ontarians generally underestimate the importance of nuclear power in the province’s electricity mix while overestimating the importance of renewable energy like wind, solar, and biomass as well as coal powered electricity generation. Gas Plant Cancellations Overall, four in ten respondents said they had been following news of the gas plant cancellations either very closely (8%) or somewhat closely (32%).  Another 31% said they had not been following the issue closely while 14% had not heard about it at all.  Since May 2013, the number of Ontarians following the cancellations in the news has fallen by 15%, suggesting that while not gone from the headlines, the issue may have already inflicted all the political damage it is capable of. Respondents who were aware of the cancellations were then asked how satisfied they were with each political party’s reaction, and with the amount of information the controversy has uncovered. Just 18% of respondents were satisfied with the way the Ontario Liberal Party has handled the controversy, compared to 30% for the Tories and 36% for the NDP.  Combined with the favourable increases in the leadership traits of Andrea Horwath, the NDP is likely to emerge from the controversy ahead of...

A short post on a new measure we have been working on with seat projector and poll analyst Bryan Breguet from TooCloseToCall.ca.  Last week we released our latest federal ballot tracking that found a close three way race between the Tories, NDP and Liberals. We have been going back and forth for a while since the Alberta and BC elections discussion how pollsters could report polling results with a little less certainty.  One of the mistakes we (pollsters, those interested in politics, the news media) often make is being overly certain – or at least – how polls are reported by pundits and the news media. While polls are snapshots in time, we know from a lot of academic research that Canadians are volatile when it comes to voting behaviour.  The concept of “partisan dealignment” advocated by Harold Clarke and his colleagues studying Canadian elections in the 1970s and 1980s and more recent 2004 and 2006 elections argues that short-term factors such as current issues, leadership, and campaign effects have a greater impact on voter behaviour than social factors such as class, race, language, or region (Clarke et al, 1979; 1991). Bryan developed a way to measure the potential range of support of political parties using our scaled “likelihood to vote” survey questions. We first introduced these scales during the 2011 Ontario election.  Basically, survey respondents are asked to rate their likelihood of voting for each of the main parties on a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 means they will absolutely not vote for the party and 10 means they will absolutely vote for the party. Bryan explains how he turns our “likelihood to vote” question into probabilities using the traditional vote question over on his blog.  Using these probabilities he then...

Download detailed tables With Ontario’s legislative assembly returning this week and the three main parties coming to terms with the results of the five by-elections in July, there has been some movement in vote intentions in the province changed. Provide-wide, the Progressive Conservative Party has the support of 33% of committed voters, followed by the Liberals and NDP at 30% respectively.  Since May, the Tories are down a marginal one point, while the Liberals are down four points and the NDP is up five points.  The Green Party is at 5% while 15% of respondents were undecided. Provincial politics in Ontario appear to be in a stalemate with none of the three major parties well positioned to win a provincial election.  However, the results suggest that the Ontario NDP and its leader Andrea Horwath have the greatest opportunity to expand its support since Horwath is the most popular provincial leader and its potential pool of support is equivalent to the Liberals (45% would consider voting NDP and Liberal) and higher than the PC Party (42% would consider voting PC). Provincial Vote Intention Since early May, the Ontario Liberal Party’s support among decided voters in the province is down four points to 30% with the PC Party now ahead by three points among committed voters.  The NDP’s slide has been reversed with the third party gaining five points and moving into a tie with the Liberals for second place at 30%. Regionally,  the once commanding 16-point lead in Metro Toronto for the Liberals has been reduced to eight points (OLP 41%, NDP 33%, PC 24%) while in the Greater Toronto/Hamilton/Niagara region surrounding Toronto the PCs have opened up a nine point lead over the Liberals leading 40% to 31% among committed voters.  The NDP is...

Download detailed tables According to a new national survey by public opinion firm Abacus Data, the federal Liberal Party, Conservative Party, and NDP remain in a three-way tie for the lead in federal vote intentions.  This three-way race has held constant since earlier in the summer (June 2013) when support for the federal Conservatives was down seven points since April 2013. Among all Canadians, 23% said they vote for the Liberal Party (no change from June) while 23% would vote Conservative (up two since June).  The NDP is unchanged at 21% of all respondents while 22% said they were undecided. In Quebec among all respondents, support for the BQ was up seven points, from 19% in June to 26% in the most recent survey compared with 27% for the NDP and 21% for the Liberals.  The Conservatives are at 8% among all respondents in Quebec while 14% of respondents said they were undecided. Among only committed voters, the Conservative Party and Liberal Party are statistically tied at 30% for the Tories and 29% for the Liberals.  The NDP is not far behind at 27% support among committed voters. Subgroup Analysis (Committed Voters only) This survey included an oversample of respondents living in Ontario allowing us to better understand voting intentions within Canada’s largest province.  Province-wide, there is a close three-way race between the Tories, Liberals, and NDP.  The Conservative Party and Liberal Party are statistically tied at 33% and 32% of committed voters respectively with the NDP not far back at 28%. Within Ontario, the Liberals and the NDP are tied in Metro Toronto (Liberal 36% vs. NDP 34%) while the Tories have a 12-point lead in the region surrounding Toronto (CPC 42%, LPC 30%, NDP 23%).  In Southwestern Ontario, the three main parties...

Download detailed report/tables According to a new survey from Abacus Data, a majority of Canadians support relaxing Canada’s marijuana laws, a large majority (77%) were aware that Justin Trudeau had admitted to using marjiuana while an MP and a large majority (68%) believed that he did what many other Canadians do, smoke a little marijuana privately with friends and his honesty should be encouraged. Although his admission has sparked debates across Canada on the topic of marijuana laws, the Abacus Data survey finds his honesty did little to change his public image in the eyes of many Canadians, with 66% saying their opinion remains unchanged while 12% said the admission improved their impression of the Liberal Leader while 15% said their impression got worse. Views on the Status of Marijuana in Canada Overall, a majority of Canadians supported either legalizing (30%) or decriminalizing (36%) the use of marijuana, while 17% felt the law should be left as-is, and 11% felt the penalties should be increased. Although there were minimal differences across age groups, residents of British Columbia were most likely to support the legalization of marijuana (36%), while Albertans and Quebec residents were least likely (20% and 19%, respectively). Politically, Conservative Party voters were least likely to support legalizing marijuana (22%), while Green Party voters were most likely to support legalization (54%). Justin Trudeau and Marijuana Use Justin Trudeau’s recent admission surrounding his recreational use of marijuana has been a high profile story and topic of discussion across the country.  As a result, it is perhaps unsurprising that eight in ten Canadians (77%) were aware of his marijuana use. Awareness was higher in Quebec (84%) and among those aged 45 and older. Overall, Canadians’ opinion of Justin Trudeau remained relatively unchanged in the wake...

A survey of eligible voters in the City of St. John’s by VOCM and polling firm Abacus Data finds that incumbent Mayor Dennis O’Keefe leads city councillor Sheilagh O’Leary by fifteen percentage points (42% vs. 27%) among all voters while Geoff Chaulk gets 1% of the vote.  Thirty percent of eligible voters are undecided. In the election for Deputy Mayor, former Deputy Mayor Ron Ellsworth is well ahead Jennifer McCreath leading by 59 percentage points (66% vs. 7%) with 27% of eligible voters undecided. Dennis O’Keefe’s lead is larger among “likely” voters Among those eligible voters likely to return their mail-in ballot (St. John’s uses a mail-in balloting system), O’Keefe’s lead grows to 19 percentage points, leading O’Leary 46% to 27% with Geoff Chaulk at 1%.  Twenty-seven percent of likely voters are undecided. Comparing Likely Voters and All Eligible Voters Mayoral Voting Intentions Vote Choice All Eligible Voters All Likely Voters* All Eligible Committed Voters All Likely Committed Voters Dennis O’Keefe 42% 46% 60% 62% Sheilagh O’Leary 27% 27% 39% 37% Geoff Chaulk 1% 1% 1% 1% Undecided 30% 27% – – N (Weighted) 436 365 307 268 *Abacus Data classifies individuals as likely voters based on their response to six questions in the survey including their interest in politics, likelihood to vote, past voting behaviour, and how closely they have been following the election. Mayoral Election – Subgroup Analysis Dennis O’Keefe does best among eligible voters aged 60 and over (48%) and among provincial Progressive Conservative Party (53%) and Liberal Party (49%) supporters. Sheilagh O’Leary leads only among provincial NDP supporters (44%). “Federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair made some waves when he encouraged Sheilagh O’Leary to run for Mayor last March,” said Abacus Data CEO David Coletto.  “O’Leary is leading among provincial NDP...