You have to love the media in Quebec. They play the game a bit more aggressively. In today's La Presse, the Globe and Mail of la belle province, they headlined a story <<CROP corrige les résultats de Léger Marketing>> (translation: "CROP corrects Léger Marketing results"). Referring, of course, to the Léger poll published in yesterday's Globe and Le Devoir showing support for sovereignty at high 54%.
The Léger results are tainted, according to CROP's Claude Gauthier:
Pour M. Gauthier, cette différence «importante» quant aux intentions de vote référendaire s'explique quand on prend connaissance des autres questions posées par les téléphonistes de Léger Marketing. Dans la même enquête, on demandait aussi aux répondants s'ils avaient «l'impression d'avoir été trahis ou non par Jean Chrétien et le Parti libéral du Canada après le référendum de 1995». Par la suite, Léger demandait aux Québécois: «Le scandale des commandites vous incite-t-il davantage ou non à voter pour la souveraineté du Québec?»
Meaning, the results are skewed because on the same call people were asked yes or no to the question: "Do you have the impression you were betrayed the Liberal Party of Canada and Jean Chretien after the 1995 referendum?" and "Does the sponsorship scandal make you more or less likely to vote for Quebec sovereignty?"
Even the Parti Québecois own former pollster says this is not the way polling questions are normally done.
Now, there are behind-the-scenes factors at play here. La Presse is an ardently federalist newspaper, Le Devoir has historically been nationalist and is now basically openly separatist. So why would the Globe go in with Le Devoir to pay for M. Léger's services, and not La Presse? And is M. Léger himself a separatist himself? I had thought he wasn't, but would like to know more.
Polyscopique has a good post on this.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:08 PM
