Desperately Seeking Ideas

Ably assisted by the media, the ubiquitous use of polls has significantly altered the public-policy landscape—and not for the better. When George Gallup brought political polling to the world in 1936, he heralded it as taking the “pulse of democracy.” By polling representative samples of the US population, Gallup was able to statistically predict the public will and held out the possibility of forging a more meaningful link between the elected and the governed. The handmaiden of the pollster was to be newspapers. Publishing polling results through the mass media would, Gallup believed, induce governments to be more responsive to their constituents and, as citizens came to understand and share a unified outlook on the world, a stronger civic bond would be created between them.

In recent years, however, the proliferation of published polls has had an effect Gallup could never have predicted. Far from fostering a more dynamic interchange between politicians and the electorate, and engendering a clear understanding of the role and responsibility of government, the omnipresence of polls appears to be dulling our capacity to think critically about current affairs, contributing to cynicism regarding public life, and relegating political leadership and instinct to the back burner.

While it is entirely appropriate that political parties take the pulse of the people, democracy itself is threatened when an elected politician’s ideas or actions are suddenly rendered unacceptable by poll results. Today, taking a stand that runs counter to popular opinion risks being labelled “off strategy.” At the same time, policy initiatives that correspond to majority views are dismissed as “poll-driven,” reinforcing the notion that politicians lack a moral compass or clear set of principles. In short, polling has become the highly flawed but authoritative source for defining good and bad politics, good and bad public policy.

Not long ago, policy initiatives were floated, even as trial balloons, over the political landscape, and pollsters were contracted to gauge responses. The relationship between the politician, as the representative of the people, and the pollster, as the private contractor, was kept at arm’s length. Then, to increase the ability of political parties to measure the public will, polling was brought in-house. Ever since, inside pollsters have occupied semi-permanent positions at policy head-tables, where they often define the parameters of debate, and just as often kill ideas “which have no traction.”

According to Elections Canada, in the 2004 general election nearly $2.5 million was spent on “election surveys or other surveys or research.” (Topping the Elections Canada list was the ndp, which spent $1.36 million.) Tailoring policies to public-opinion research is producing a politics of half-measures (on health care, foreign aid, the military), of equivocations (not strictly reducing carbon emissions to meet the Kyoto target, but rather buying credits), of flip-flops (on fiscal imbalance and Ontario’s “right” to a better deal). A wary and weary public wants instead that strong, principled positions be taken, and for the policies to spill directly from those positions.

During election campaigns, next to the leader himself, there are few more influential voices than that of the inside pollster, the gun for hire. Elections should see people in the streets demonstrating or in village squares mediating their differences; instead, they are locked in their homes, on the phone, being surveyed.

Compounding the situation, the near-instantaneous ability to gauge and report on the public’s reaction to current events shapes the media’s coverage of the news and crowds out more thorough and nuanced explanations of what is happening in the world. The spate of polls beginning in early April served as both headline and explanation as to “why” certain events were unfolding as they were. On April 15, the Toronto Star reported, “The polls have made Harper alternatively aggressive and coy about when he might join with the other opposition parties and defeat the minority government.” Stephen Harper, it appears, is neither coy nor aggressive himself, but the polls have made him so.

As the current debate over health-care reform illustrates, thinking that runs contrary to poll results is political suicide. For over five years, public-opinion polls have revealed that Canadians are most concerned about the deteriorating quality of health care. The polls further indicate majority support for a publicly funded, universally accessible health-care system, and that Canada’s national identity is tied to such a system. In sum, polls show that the quality and manner in which health care is delivered is a source of national pride, provides a point of differentiation from the US, and gives Canadians a unique sense of themselves.

Proposing radical alterations to this sacred trust is therefore taboo. Even the relatively benign suggestion of delivering certain services through the private sector is attacked as opening the door to a two-tier system. And yet, politicians, the press, and the medical profession itself all know that many services—prescription drugs, dentistry, chiropractics, etc.—are not paid for out of the public purse, and already constitute a second tier. Furthermore, were it not for the intellectual dishonesty surrounding the issue, they would also acknowledge that private delivery of health care is the cornerstone of the system. Doctors, after all, are not civil servants, but small-business people contracting to provide health services for their own profit.

The unwillingness to tackle this issue with anything other than proposals for incremental tinkering has led to a decision-making paralysis that contributes to the deterioration of Canada’s health-care system. Meanwhile, press reports of escalating costs, combined with increased waiting times for surgery, a shortage of qualified nurses and doctors, etc., proves that government is unable to effect meaningful change—resulting in more cynicism towards politicians and the political process.