Out with opinion polls and attack ads are in

As our former Canadian Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker once said "I never trusted a poll, only dogs know what to do with poles.", but he only touched the tip of the iceberg with the comment after seeing his own numbers climb over that of the Liberals, a political response polls failed to prognosticate ahead of time for. Watching the British Columbia general provincial election and subsequent Liberal victory, as well as those in Alberta by the progressive Conservatives and Québec by the Parti Québécois last year, one who has been watching elections for decades is quite shocked to see how public opinion polls, to which all of us have relied on at one time or another, have basically had their previous reputable credibility disintegrate right before our eyes. One oft repeated reason for said failure is the opinion polling results come solely from old traditional methods such as landline telephone numbers and not those from new social media such as electronic mail addresses, thus hear only from a certain type of voting constituency and not a completely different one, lending to an inaccurate methodological results that show a completely different picture than ones made on the ballot  and in the box on election night.

Personally, as a progressive democratic reformer, I am especially distressed at the fact that we Canadians may be saying goodbye to a form of gaining public opinion we seemingly release and saying hello to a form of giving out private propaganda publicly we now seemingly embrace.

Such is the attack ad which is making its comeback, a supposed no no which this country is saying a resounding yes to because of its bullying empowerment of the base they are intended for to attack and act in they way the ad calls for against the inept, inconfident and incompetent target, yet another example of hypocrisy citizens prove their democracy to be every once in awhile. No wonder governments have no clear and concise vision in their governance, perhaps the time to merge what we say and what we think together in one consistently communicated statement has come, if not citizens have no right to negatively protest without a responsibility to positively comment. Back to some more wisdom from Dief the Chief, who even had a timely statement for this as well, "Criticism is sometimes necessary to create public opinion, but use discretion.", sadly discretion in thought seems not to be found in the actions of today.