Racist Survey Questions on a Survey about Multi-Culturalism

OK. Click on this image. I dare you. I'll go into how offended I am by it below. If you find the questions fine, you can stop reading now and go here.
I'm starting to become far more than mildly concerned about Innovative Research Group. I've already written about the creative nature of interpreting reality that goes on at Robbins SCE Research. Now I can't help but wonder about the validity of IRG's polling.
Among whatever else they do, they conduct monthly polls in an online format. They ask about political support and current events.
Their online polling methodology is questionable. To sign up for their Canada 20/20 polls, you must provide an incredibly personal dossier on yourself, which they can use to pre-determine who gets to answer each month's poll. Maybe they request participation randomly. If so, why bother with all the up-front data-mining? I suppose we should just trust them on this. Here are your views and information they ask about [a poll in itself] before you can participate in their polls:
- federal party support
- our presence in Afghanistan
- Medicare and prescription drugs
- gender
- birthdate
- postal code
- citizenship
- residency
- whether you work in media or polling
- whether and who you voted for in the last federal election
- whether Quebec is a distinct society
- federal party affiliation
- your registered and non-registered investments
- your personal financial asset wealth
- your charitable giving habits
- the role of newspapers, tv and the internet in your news gathering, and which media outlets
- whether you rent or own your home
- employment status, sector, job category and authority position
- formal education
- union membership
- religion!
- language at home
- and of course the money shot, household income [which you can decline to answer, as with some but not all other questions]
- the country where you and your parents were born
- whether you wish to be in a focus group
They do break down the 17% of 473 people [or 80] who reported being affected and 96% of them [77 people] ]live in Vancouver or the lower mainland. I am not thrilled by that sample size. Good thing the Vancouver Sun reported on the poll that includes merely 77 of the over 2 million living in the lower mainland [that's .00386% of the population].
In all, they conclude that poll participants think the union had been more unreasonable than the city. Presumably this includes people from the rest of BC who may have virtually no knowledge of the machinations of the strike itself. In the end it doesn't matter because the percentages blaming each side were within the margin of error. So no one really loses. They interpret this to mean a pox on both your houses. Perhaps the conclusion is lack of information due to living in Fort St. John or Cranbrook.
So I've been wary of IRG's methodology for some time now. But this evening I participated in one of their polls. Why not? I have a chance to win $500.
After many reasonable questions in the monthly online survey, many having to do with general views of federal and provincial politics and multi-cultural acceptance [perhaps having to do with Bruce Allen and his idiocy], I encountered a series of questions asking how I felt about living in a society with so many cultures.
I was even asked to reflect on the idea that after all, our nation is a land of immigrants. [I agreed.]
Then I clicked on the next page button and saw this piece of garbage above.
I thought I had learned to stuff down the bile in my throat after Gordon Campbell's BC neoLiberal party has gone all in favour of treaty negotiations after their racist First Nations treaty referendum, but now we have a "major" polling group asking these ridiculous questions.
Below is the letter I sent to their support@canada2020.com. Feel free to share with them how you feel about asking these ridiculous questions. And pop back here to see any updates. I expect a response from them. If I don't get one, I'll comment on that as well.
Attached is a screenshot of a question in your current web survey [the same image as above].
It is irresponsible, inflammatory and impossible to answer by anyone but the ignorant or at best highly uninformed.
It can provide no meaningful information.
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
While most of the other questions were highly or mostly answerable without having to over-simplify thought, this entire page is an affront. I await your apology and a public apology to all who have answered this survey.
I will be tracking how you disseminate the results of this survey. If you demonstrate that you have included information from this question, I will publicly be demanding a public apology.
Stephen Elliott-Buckley
Labels: Activism, British Columbia, CanWest, Class War, Community, Culture, Democracy, Equality, First Nations, Journalism, Lifestyle, Media, Morality, Racism, Society, Vancouver