CKNW Editorial
for March 16, 2000

As so often is the case, the polls taken now, over a year from an election, are full of prunes. They tell us nothing because the pollsters still haven't cottoned onto what is happening.

Every time we get a year before an election the polls tell us that the Liberals are in great shape. And every time Liberals come up to me and say see ... we're going to trounce the Reform Party this time. And every year the Liberals get their butts kicked.

Perhaps the most remembered instance of this phenomenon was in May of 1988 when the polls showed the Liberals leading in the country and in B.C. A few months later they got trounced by Brian Mulroney and the Tories and only elected one MP from BC, John Turner who was the sitting Prime Minister.

What's all this in aid of?

Well, the Liberals themselves know about this quirk which may, for all I know, be a result of bad polling techniques. While the Angus Reid Group, unsurprisingly, finds Jean Chretien popular as hell the Liberal caucus is trying hard to find a way to tell him it's pipe and slippers time. Now why would a Liberal caucus be trying to dump a Prime Minister that's so popular?

Either because they're collectively mad or they're hearing something on the street that the pollsters aren't. The fact is that in spite of the polls the Liberals aren't going to win a majority in the next election and the rank and file know it. They know that this is especially true if the Canadian Alliance takes hold, even a little bit, in Ontario.

Preston Manning must, each night, say a little prayer that Jean Chretien remains at the helm of the Liberals and that Joe Clark continues to lead the Tories. It doesn't matter who leads the NDP, the man in the moon would do, because they're going nowhere. The Liberals also know something else. All bets are off with Paul Martin as leader. With him at the helm the Liberals could win and might even pick up a few seats west of the Lakehead. So why are Reid and colleagues getting these funny figures? It's because people don't tell them the truth during the interim between elections. Also they ask funny questions like do you approve of the job Jean Chretien is doing? Compared to what? Or rather whom? Compared to Joe Clark? Or Alexa McDonough? Or perhaps Tony Blair?

Voters will start telling pollsters something approximating the truth when the election campaign is under way. Figures before that are meaningless. Let me give you an even better example. In 1992, before the Charlottetown campaign began, the pollsters showed British Columbians in favour. At the time I said the pollsters were wrong. With a week to go it was suddenly 58% against and that was 11 points out when the results came in.

The good politicians know how to read polls and they also know that popularity questions are pretty meaningless. I suspect that the experienced political advisers in Ontario are telling any who listen that if the Liberals are to have a chance to form the next government they had better start up the Paul Martin train real soon.

And if they do that, Preston Manning and Stockwell Day will be having a lot more trouble sleeping.