We won't walk to a nearby walking trail #nlpoli

The Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay commissioned a consultant to look at possible future development of a sand pit in a residential area of the town. You can read the report at the town website.

The consultants first held a public meeting open to all town residents.  Then they tried other ways of soliciting opinions, like setting up a booth in the local mall. Then they did a survey of a sample of town residents.

Out of all that, the consultants figured out two interesting things.  First, they "determined that the individuals which would most effected [sic] by the development would live within a 400-meter radius of the area of interest."  Second, they community feedback through all those means told them that 400 metres was also "the maximum distance that the average person would walk to reach a park or recreation area."

MQO poll shows big Liberal slide #nlpoli

Just for the fun of comparison, here's the CRA polling results for a year covering the last time the provincial government saw a change of party and the new crowd introduced a killer budget no one expected.

The Conservatives dropped from 55 points in November 2003 to 33 points in May of the next year.

They only climbed out of the hole by abandoning their austerity program and launching a costly jihad against Ottawa.

Delivering a bad budget is one thing.  Delivering a bad budget very badly is something else entirely.

That's why, As bad as the polling numbers are for the Liberals in MQO's April 2016 poll, there is nothing in it that's surprising to anyone paying attention to local politics.

CRA, Abacus, and the 2013 Nova Scotia General Election #nlpoli #nspoli

In the recent Nova Scotia General election, Corporate Research Associates and the Halifax Chronicle Herald teamed up to provide readers with a daily tracking poll.

CRA was quick off the mark after the election to issue a news release defending its own polling, complete with the screaming headline that claimed CRA polls had “nailed It”.

A closer looks at polling during the lection and election results tells a different story.

Wanted: a good row #nlpoli

One of the unreserved joys that comes from writing these scribbles is the moment when a post sparks something.

Like on Monday, when a simple post looking at change in the provincial gross domestic product prompted an exchange among a few of the provincial Twitterati (Twitteratini?) on the whole business.  Was it useful?  What did it mean?  Wonderful stuff considering that the post was intended to provoke thought of just that sort, not reach any hard-and-fast conclusions.

The political uses of talk radio

From a story on the front page of the Wednesday Telegram:

Open-line has little impact on the formation of big-picture public policy, but does have a strong effect on government behaviour, with political actors paying "considerable attention" to what is said on VOCM. 

That has translated into partisan efforts to control the frequency, as it were - intense monitoring of open-line programs for rapid reaction to issues that may arise; promoting party positions through stacking the lines to suggest grassroots support; and using the airwaves to avoid answering difficult questions from other media outlets.

Sadly, it isn’t available online unless you are a Telly subscriber.

The story discusses an article by Memorial University political scientists Alex Marland and Matthew Kerby who conducted a detailed study of politicians and talk radio in the province.  As part of the research, Marland and Kerby compiled statistical analysis of callers, frequency of calls and dates as well as a series of in-depth interviews with politicians, political staff and journalists.

Regular readers of this corner of the universe will recognise the discussion, for example, in this section of the Telegram story about planted callers,

Marland and Kerby found that the limited pool of callers to open line presents "a very serious credibility gap," with line-stacking so prevalent it is believed that the lines are monopolized by a pool of just 30 to 100 callers. 

"The prevalence of political calls questions whether the openness and spirit of talk radio is supplanted by parties' efforts to control the shows' content," the MUN researchers note in their paper.

There’s also a section on poll goosing, that is timing announcements and open line activity to coincide with CRA polling periods.

And the bizarro attention paid to VOCM Question of the Day? Here’s a tiny bit of the Marland and Kerby take on things:

One respondent provided us with tabular data of efforts to influence the outcome, which involved hundreds of automated repeat votes that were critical of Williams, and which almost instantly provoked an apparently automated response supporting the premier. This occurred only during the workday and not in the evening (one minister told us that party staff‘go crazy’ clicking during the day).[Note:  Marland and Kerby here are referring to political staff working in government offices]

The one thing they really don’t make clear is that the level of this sort of activity since October 2003 dwarfs anything that went before.  Some people may like to think otherwise, just as some people like to deny this sort of stuff goes on at all. The evidence speaks loudly for itself, however.

“The audience is listening: talk radio and public policy in Newfoundland and Labrador" is available in the November 2010 issue of Media, Culture and Society, a peer-reviewed journal of research on communications and society. Individual articles are available for purchase online or through your local library. 

The Memorial University Library subscribes to MCS for those who can access it.

- srbp -

Bashing your own guys over the head is soooo strategic

An article in the current issue of Embassy magazine examines the European Union’s seal ban and how it is that Canada found itself outmanoeuvred by the anti-hunt movement.

University of Calgary political science professor Donald Barry told Embassy that two things gave the otherwise moribund seal crowd a new lease on life.

One was a hike in quotas that brought the number close enough to a million to give it some propaganda value again.

The other was…

Mr. Barry says another key development was the fierce exchange between Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams and former Beatle Paul McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills McCartney on CNN's Larry King Live in March 2006. During the show, Mr. Williams alleged, among other things, that the FBI was investigating the International Federation for Animal Welfare and other animal-rights groups for terrorism, and that the McCartneys were being used by the groups.

"The publicity propelled [IFAW] right back into the forefront of the opposition," Mr. Barry says. With IFAW's ability to mobilize support and the Humane Society's strong public relations machine, "you have a series of groups whose strengths complement each other and they're practiced at what they do."

So basically that whole Larry King foolishness turned out to be a gigantic help to the other guys.

And that one trip to Europe did exactly diddly-squat.

Like, no one saw that coming.

- srbp -

.

The bits they didn't say

A youth conference discussing ways of keeping young people in the province.

A speech by the Premier, including the comment:

"It is by making sound choices in the coming years, both individually and as one team, that we will be able to remove the word 'outmigration' from our vocabularies in the same way that we removed the word 'have-not,' " Williams said during a speech.

That quote from a CBC news story includes comments from two participants, one of whom uses very familiar phrases:

"I don't think it needs to be Alberta wages," Snow said. "I'm not looking for Alberta. I love Newfoundland and Labrador and I love St. Anthony. I just want to stay — Newfoundland is home."

The old homing pigeon drive.

or these comments from the voice of the cabinet minister version:

Twenty year old St. Anthony native Kara Snow says Newfoundland and Labrador is a proud strong determined province and the people here have a lot of things to show that.

Jonathan Earle from Red Bay, Labrador says he thinks the Youth Retention and Attraction Strategy is a step in the right direction.

Proud. Strong. Determined.

Nothing like a political party slogan or, for that matter, a fellow attending the conference.

And Kara and Jonathan are, evidently just two young people attending this conference, they being typical of young people across Newfoundland and Labrador who are, quite naturally interested in these things on a go forward basis.

Typical they might be but they do have a couple of features that make them stand out, features left out of the news stories.

Like the fact that the conference or summit was by invitation only, meaning that those in attendance were selected by the provincial government and its hired consultant.  Not so much a gathering of people driven by their own interests as much as a carefully selected group.  Carefully selected according to some unknown criteria;  perhaps their ability to spout talking points or their enthusiasm for the official views.

Certainly it is not for new ideas since the original news release and the stuff just recently speaks of discovering what young people are prepared to give up.  Government is apparently less interested in creating an environment that promotes excellence and accomplishment and more one based on "an understanding of the trade-offs and choices young people are prepared to make."

The homing pigeon policy. 

We can solve outmigration, to go back to the Premier's speech, not by innovation and creativity but by figuring out how little people are prepared to settle for. Or in Kara's construction, people should expect to make less money since she does not want "Alberta", she wants something else, called Newfoundland and Labrador.

How edifying a notion.

How far the opposite of "have" could one get when by the very words they use the Premier and the people at his conference accept notions that limit everyone to accepting less than might be attained elsewhere.

This is fundamentally the opposite of the approach set by government, based on genuine consultation, in the years when most of these young people were toddlers, in diapers or not even thought of.  The 1992 strategic economic plan - Change and challenge - set as its vision "an enterprising, educated , distinctive and prosperous people working together to create a competitive economy based on innovation, creativity, productivity and quality." 

There was no need to ask young people what it would take to get them to stay here.  For the most part, people leave because elsewhere offers greater personal and financial opportunities.  The solution to ending outmigration lay in creating a province in which wealth - genuine "have" status - could be found at home.  Creating wealth - the synonym is "prosperity"  - came from unleashing talent and creativity, of daring against the best in the world. 

In 1992, staying in Newfoundland and Labrador did not have to mean compromise.  In 2008, compromising, settling, accepting less is the stated foundation of government strategy.  In 1992, compromise was rejected;  in 2008, it is embraced.

But then there is the other bit about Kara and Jonathan and likely a bunch of others at the session.  These are not just any young people but part of the group selected already by the provincial government to work with the consultants:

A Youth Advisory Panel will provide ongoing advice on the project’s research design and the development of materials such as dialogue workbooks.

This project seems less about research, of finding out what people want and more about confirming a pre-determined set of ideas, of guiding people along a path.

Certainly, if the familiar phrases used by the conference organizers and presented as ostensibly unvarnished opinion is any guide, the strategy is working.

It's always the stuff they don't tell you that is more revealing.

-srbp-