Course talk:POLI380JAN2011Owen/Survey/Political Institution Reform

Could someone summarize the 5 questions on Course page? If this is made in a day or so, that contribution will still be counted. By TA, GoMurakami 15:14, 9 February 2011 (PST)

It seems like our categories are being divided into two main themes, so feel free to contribute towards the questions on Senate Reform in this thread.

In terms of a Senate poll, perhaps the ruberic under which we conduct the polling could be, "How do Canadians feel about the Senate?" I know this is rather straightforward, but I think it's good if we organize our questions under a general umbrella.

In addition to the questions you guys have already come up with, perhaps we could also ask some questions that are directed towards people's existing knowledge of the Senate. Such as: "On a scale from one (very little knowledge) through five (comprehensive knowledge), how would you gauge your knowledge of how the Canadian Senate works?"

Also, we could ask: "The Canadian Senate's role is classically defined as the chamber of 'sober second thought'. Do you think such a role is necessary in a healthy parliamentary democracy?" Yes/No/Don't Know.

We could also potentially ask how people feel about the allocation of senators... Because proportionally it is really unfair. Each region gets 24 senators so thats 24 for Quebec and Ontario, 24 for the Maritimes (10 each to Nova Scota and New Brunswick and 4 for PEI (population appox 100,000). Meanwhile, Western Canada (Man, Sask, Al, BC) get 24 so thats only 6 for BC, which has a population of around 4 million.

What do citizens think of this? Is it a problem? I don't really know what to think because the system seems to work in the States, where each state gets two senators regardless of population.

Grace, I worry about asking how knowledgeable people are about the senate because our scale would be arbitrary. How would we know, and how would the responders know, what a knowledge level of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 is? We could maybe ask, "Do you know how the Canadian Senate works?" Yes/No, but then again, I don't see what information we could get from those response. I see now that senate reform questions are difficult because we don't know how much people know about the senate. I fear we'll only get "no" or "I don't know" responses.

Adding to Blythe's line of thinking we could potentially give the current number of senators each 'region' gets and ask whether it should stay the same, if regions should get same number of senators, or if each province should get the same number of senators? (and then we may need to take the territories into consideration, they all currenty get one).

True Deanie, the scale is arbitrary. Then again, lots of survey questions that try to gauge people's opinions use scales created by the pollster; perhaps if we assigned values to each number (0 - no knowledge, 1 - minimal knowledge, etc. etc.) we could narrow the scale down a bit. I'm just thinking that if our question is going to be "What would you like to see happen to the Senate?" Abolish, Elected, etc. etc., it'd be interesting to see how Canadians actually rate their understanding of this somewhat behind-the-scenes institution.

Meh, wrote a bunch on my phone and then accidentally hit a link. Shame on you iPhone and your touchscreen.

What I was going to contribute here is the possibility of adding a question in order to make everything just more clear for the respondents, and to make it possibly easier for us to calculate the data results after they come back. It's up to everyone whether it's worth another question to do this, and I'm not all too sure myself whether it's necessary. It would look something like this:

Q1: "Which statement best reflects your view about the senate?"

1. The senate is ineffective and needs to be abolished.

2. The senate is ineffective and needs to be reformed.

3. The senate is effective.

4. Don't care/Don't know.

[If I've missed any other reasonable responses to this question, feel free to add them.]

This question can then be followed up by asking:

Q2: "If you felt that the senate is ineffective and needs to be reformed, which of the following reforms do you think are necessary?" (Select all applicable answers)

1. The senate should be elected.

2. The senate should be proportionally divided according to population.

3. The senate should be proportionally divided according to region.

4. The senate should have term limits.

5. Senators should have reduced salaries.

6. Other

[Again, I'm thinking of these on the spot, feel free to add/subtract/criticize any of these options.]

-- In response to Deanie and Grace, what kind of distribution do you expect? Part of what I think we should measure isn't necessarily the validity of people's reasons for what they believe, but simply the *sentiment* of the population.

If a person puts a "1" for their knowledge of the way the senate works, would this condition them to answering "Don't know" on further questions? This also matters because it's surprisingly difficult to measure yourself against an invisible standard. I personally wouldn't really know how to answer that question. I might say I'm a 2, a 3, or even a 4, depending on my mood. This is a 50% variation when a scale only goes from 0 to 5.

I think those question regarding senate reform sound good.

It seems like our categories are being divided into two main themes, so feel free to contribute towards the questions on Electoral Reform in this thread.

I'm just adding the question suggestions I already posted in our main thread to this thread to keep it organized!

For BC electoral reform questions, I liked what Markus said about finding a theory for why STV didn’t pass – perhaps finding out whether it was STV that BC residents didn’t like or if it was the idea electoral reform they didn't like. A lot of debate ensued post-referendum on whether or not BC residents were briefed properly on the complexities of STV. We could start by asking BC residents: 1) Did you vote in the 2008 referendum to change BC’s electoral system from FPTP to STV? 2) Do you agree with the following statement: Electoral reform in BC is necessary. 3) Do you agree with the following statement: BC residents were not given sufficient information on and explanation of the STV system prior to the 2008 referendum. 4) On a scale one (no understanding) through five (full understanding), rank your understanding of the Single Transferable Voting system.

Well to weigh in on this, I think we're getting down to a good discrimination. I'm actually in favour of the question Deanie proposed early on in discussion, partly because of its clear wording, and also because of it's nice lack of bias (which is something hard to avoid when you're looking for causal links, I've found.) The question was this: "Which of the following electoral systems do you think is the most fair?" - First Past the Post (FPTP - Current System) - Alternative Vote - Proportional Representation - Single Transferable Vote (STV) - Mixed Member Plurality (MMP) - Don't Know

Now I've already mentioned some of what is good about this question, let me make the case some more. The spectrum of choices means that people well-versed in electoral systems will be able to express themselves fairly clearly when it comes to answering the concern of "Is it just the STV reform that people weren't interested in?" Next, we can also gauge the feelings towards the existing electoral system, in the case where most people pick FPTP. I've labelled it as the current electoral system in order to help people who just have no clue what any of these (including FPTP) mean. Third, if we get a significant vote in the "Don't Know" category, this will give us a pretty solid result that people are dissatisfied with the existing system enough not to find it fair, but not informed enough about alternatives to make lasting change. I'm also looking forward to how these conclusions pair up with different socioeconomic and party affiliated respondents.

So these two questions form what I think offers a healthy amount of info on BC's electoral reform. "How did you vote in the 2008 referendum on changing our First Past the Post electoral system to Single Transferable Vote?" - Yes - No - Did Not Vote

Markus, I think we should be a little more cautious when applauding our "lack of bias":

"Well to weigh in on this, I think we're getting down to a good discrimination. I'm actually in favour of the question Deanie proposed early on in discussion, partly because of its clear wording, and also because of it's nice lack of bias (which is something hard to avoid when you're looking for causal links, I've found.) The question was this: "Which of the following electoral systems do you think is the most fair?" - First Past the Post (FPTP - Current System) - Alternative Vote - Proportional Representation - Single Transferable Vote (STV) - Mixed Member Plurality (MMP) - Don't Know"' I feel this question is pretty loaded.

- Firstly, We obviously bias the results of our poll towards the electoral systems we suggest. What if I think the fairest type of electoral system is a specific type of preferential voting (ranked pairs for example), Party list proportional, a parallel vote etc...? The question will systematically favor the listed responses and at the expense of the multitude of unlisted electoral systems.

-Secondly, we are asking what electoral system is most "fair". Is this to be understood as what electoral system is best? I may think an electoral system is not the most fair, but otherwise desirable for some other attribute. For instance, FPTP might be "unfair" to smaller political parties, but may still be the best electoral system because it creates effective governments by manufacturing majorities. If we assume the best electoral system must be the "fairest" we bias our survey against the other possible merits of electoral systems.

-Thirdly, our selection of answers might effectively "split the vote" of respondents to make an option less popular by splitting its advocates into two smaller subgroups. Consider the respondent to the proposed question who believes STV to be the fairest system because it achieves proportional representation- do they select the "STV" response or the "proportional representation response"?

Some of these criticisms may be beyond the scope of our current poll given the limits we are working under, but I still think we must be aware of these problems to minimize them. The question might be a good one despite the deficiencies I just mentioned, but we must at least be aware of them.

The questions I've seen on surveys (and last semester's survey) are pretty biased. Some of them are supposed to be to get people emotional about a topic which leads to them answering less logically and more on a personal basis. I don't know many people who get emotional of electoral reform (I, for one, do but that's just me) so I don't feel this bias would hinder our research/conclusion (whatever that may be).

Question often use ambiguous terms so that the person being surveyed can interpret a question/term whichever way he/she wants to. In this week's tutorial, some of the questions just ask "how much of taxes does government waste" and "how many in government are crooked". What do the terms 'waste' and 'crooked' mean? It would have different meanings for every person and maybe that is the intention.

I just feel the wording of questions is sometimes purposely vague (that will be my defense for my question, but I don't mind changes to it).

Riley you raise some really good points, and I think the wording would have to be revised somewhat in consideration of your concerns. Rather than asking which is most FAIR, why not ask people which they think is BEST?

This would allow personal preference to weigh much more heavily, as people who see justice as fairness would be distinguished from people who look for electoral systems to produce effective governments.

In response to the limited set from our options, I think we're alright. The two other options you provided I am entirely unfamiliar with, so I wouldn't expect a significant proportion of respondents to feel alienated by our selection. Removing proportional representation I'm not certain about. You're right that it would divide people who may support a subset of proportional voting, which is why I might be inclined to remove it, but at the same time a purely proportional system is very different than the STV option.

Splitting the vote could end up being exactly the response we want. I offered the possibility that one reason why the STV DIDN'T pass was because of those alternate systems, STV was less preferable to many than one of the other options. It is possible that we could witness exactly the same distribution of STV preference in our question as in the referendum, with most of the split coming from people who voted in favour of keeping the current system.

I'm in favour of keeping Proportional Representation. Like Markus just said, even if people select it (without maybe even realizing that STV and MMP are both PR systems), it still tells us what we were interested in earlier: did people not want an electoral reform, or not want STV? As I've always thought since the referendum, just because British Columbians voted down STV doesn't necessarily mean that British Columbians don't want any electoral reform whatsoever.

Maybe, under the FPTP option, we could also include that it is 'Single Member Plurality'?

Markus, I think the hypothesis that "STV did not pass because a significant portion of voters favoured an alternative electoral reform" is a great hypothesis for our poll to test. Similar suggestions were made below and this would be a good direction to head in.

"Splitting the vote could end up being exactly the response we want. I offered the possibility that one reason why the STV DIDN'T pass was because of those alternate systems, STV was less preferable to many than one of the other options. It is possible that we could witness exactly the same distribution of STV preference in our question as in the referendum, with most of the split coming from people who voted in favour of keeping the current system."

I disagree with you here. Some of the answers to the proposed questions are electoral systems, while "proportional representation" is a quality of an electoral system. I'm not sure what we would gain from asking this question, as any result could be explained in multiple ways :

Consider if the results of the proposed question were as follows: 80% of respondents think proportional representation is 'best', 20% think STV is "best". Perhaps 100% of people favour STV, 80% because it is proportionally representative and 20% because of some other feature. Or maybe 80% favour another type of electoral system they think is proportional and only 20% think STV is "best". Analysis of the proposed question is impossible and can neither support or refute our hypothesis.

To adress the hypothesis that "STV did not pass because a significant portion of voters favoured an alternative electoral reform" I suggest these questions:

Q1) How Satisfied with the Current Electoral System in British Columbia 1) Very Satisfied 2) Somewhat Satisfied 3) Unsatisfied 4) Very Unsatisfied

Q2) Are you in favor of Electoral reform in BC? 1) Yes 2) No 3)Not sure

Q3) In addition to the 2009 provincial election, British Columbia had a referendum regarding the adoption of a new electoral system: Single Transferable Vote (STV). How did you vote in the 2009 electoral reform referendum? 1) I voted Yes to Single Transferable Vote (STV) 2) I voted No to Single Transferable Vote (STV) 3) I did not vote in the 2009 electoral referendum 4) I don't remember

Q4) Has your attitude on electoral reform changed between now and the 2009 referendum? 1) Yes 2) No

One problem is the historical element to our hypothesis- were trying to identify what might have caused an event in 2009 by a poll done in 2011. The last question is meant to try and cope with this issue- If we see that most peoples attitudes have changed we would likely need a different approach to prove our hypothesis. Still I feel Q4 does not adequately deal with the historical problem (It might be that a poll is not the best tool for this hypotheses).

Heyo all! Let's get this party started. I think we should decide which type of institutional reform to tackle. I have two suggestions: senate reform and electoral reform. I agree with the former but despise the latter. My opinion doesn't matter though, it's what the people want. For senate reform we could possibly ask something along the lines of "do you agree/disagree that the current senate system needs to be reformed" (strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree). For electoral reform, we can ask "the currently first past the post electoral system is undemocratic" (strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree).

Thoughts and opinions?

Senate Reform: Perhaps we should specify what aspects of the Senate people feel need to be reformed. For example, while some feel it should be reformed under the "Triple-E" criteria (equal, elected, and efficient), others only agree with one of these principles or another criteria altogether. Also, some might want the Senate should be abolished altogether. This could come in the form of a follow-up question.

Electoral Reform: For those who feel the electoral system should be reformed, we could inquire about what aspect of the system they want changed -- for example, a more proportional system that minimizes fractionalization, or a system that allows for smaller parties to be represented (or both).

Parliamentary Decorum: There has been some discussion in the media and Parliament about improving the decorum and cooperation of lawmakers. We should include a question about whether politicians' antics increase cynicism/apathy among the electorate and whether they want decorum improved.

So the party has officially started! I like both the original topics, but I feel people will be a little more informed on electoral reform since we so recently had the STV initiative in BC. I do tend to agree with Deanie though that electoral reform is a little boring and might be arduous to get through. Building on Aaron's point, we could simply ask whether people voted to change the electoral system in BC (I assume most of the respondents in our survey will be from BC), we could also ask simply questions like "Do you think the current electoral system in Canada is fair?" or we could make a list of different electoral systems and inquire which one respondents would most like to live under. With regards to Senate reform we could ask questions that would give us obvious answers ("Do you think the Canadian Senate is effective?" I tend to think most people would say "no") and build more questions from there, simply because we will obviously have to analyze our data in later assignments. So for instance, we could eventually say something like "well 87.2% of people thought the Canadian Senate was not effective, their solutions were much more scatterd... 24% said abolish it altogether, 13.3% said implement the Triple E criteria, etc..."... I think easy questions like that will make our lives easier down the road.

In addition to the previous two topics I thought that questions regarding the House of Commons and the Judiciary might be appropriate. For example, issues over private member's bills and party discipline would be interesting because they are both more or less the status quo, in that private member's bills play a negligible role in Canadian policy making because of the huge emphasis on party discipline and confidence in the House. So it would be kinda interesting to see if people like this status quo or if they would like different, and perhaps more meaningful, types of discussion in the Parliament. I also think we could ask questions regarding people's views on MP expenses and whether these should be made public. Also, for the Judicial branch we could ask questions about whether people are satisfied with the role the Judiciary plays in Canada, particularly with respect to contentious issues (ie Prostitution, Gay Marriage, Narcotics etc), or whether they think the Courts or Parliament should be more or less active in Canadian life.

Alright, lots of good ideas. I'll throw in my two cents now before too much gets set into stone. Senate Reform and Electoral reform are the two subjects people are most likely to have an opinion on, so I think that gives them a significant advantage in terms of usefulness in a survey. My call is to limit our topics to just these two spheres if we want to get some useful data to draw conclusions from. Judicial discretion and private members bills are significant issues to those of us already interested in political science, but it's probably a big leap to assume many Canadians hold views on this issues/know what either side is advocating.The worst thing for me is to get back all our questions with "missing" or "not sure" answers.

Senate Reform (particularly the Triple-E option) is not nearly as recent as the STV referendum we just had, so I would expect more moderate positions across the board, but it was more widely advertised and more clearly argued by its supporters. But because it's been a while, if we form questions around this issue, I would downplay the usefulness of a gradient scale (For example, if we were asking how effective Canadians feel the senate is, I would expect very few to say "very effective" or even "moderately effective".) I am curious however, *why* people might say it is ineffective, using a list of possible complaints (lack of elections, unrepresentative composition, tendency towards partisanship). This list feels very biased to me, but i think it would be useful to gauge dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction.

With Electoral Reform there are also many ways we can go, so narrowing down a research question might be useful. I'm down with looking at sentiments following the attempt of STV and reasons why people voted the way they did. With this data we could possibly find interesting patterns (or lack thereof) between income, geographic position, party affiliation, and opinions on representation. Perhaps we might find that the members of the NDP strongly favoured the STV system because it would benefit them, whereas Liberals tended to vote it down because it would disadvantage them. Perhaps low-income earners were less confident that parties could work together in the STV system for it to be as effective, or maybe high income-earners were worried that it would increase bureaucratic costs and increase the level of taxes they pay, while giving them less say in political matters. Really, who knows, but these are some possible theories to answer the question "Why did the STV system not pass?"

I should mention that if there are many typos in here, it's because I'm on my phone, but let's keep the discussion going!

Thanks Connor for bringing up STV, I don't know why I totally forgot. Ok so we've narrowed down electoral reform, should we ask two questions on this topic? Here are some possibilities:

"How did you vote in the 2008 referendum on changing our First Past the Post electoral system to Single Transferable Vote?"

- Yes - No - Did Not Vote

"Which of the following electoral systems do you think is the most fair?" - First Past the Post - Alternative Vote - Proportional Representation - Single Transferable Vote - Mixed Member Plurality - Don't Know

I like Markus's idea for specific reasons as to why people would feel (assuming that they do feel) the senate is ineffective. My only worry is how would we use that data? Would we rank it like "unelected" is 0-2, and so on. I guess this would only be an issue graphically. Possible questions for this topic could be:

"What would you like to see happen to the Senate?" - Become elected - Have term limits - Be provincially equal (same number for all provinces) - Abolished

We could have two questions on the senate and our last question could be for private members bills/judiciary? Also, does anyone have any research questions so we could base our questions on that question? I don't know if it's mandatory for us to create the whole scientific method design thing, but it may be useful to have one.

Also, I'd like to welcome the new members to our group :)

thank you for the welcome Deanie! so drawing on markus' idea of electoral reform and potential causal phenomenon, a research question that leads to our survey questions could be: do smaller political parties tend to advocate for electoral reform? but everybody wants electoral reform (with the exception of the ones who first pas the post empowers - conservatives) so better phrased are smaller political parties more likely to advocate for electoral reform?

so this is obvious but not obvious enough, can anyone brainstorm other research questions that could enable us to expand or make our survey questions more varied?

Hey All! Sorry for joining late - thanks for the welcome Deanie!

I like everyones ideas about centering questions onto Senate reform and electoral reform.

I think if we could simply Deanie's question about "Which of the follow electoral system do you think is most fair" to something like..

Q: Do you believe the current electoral system (FPTP) provides a fair result? A: - Yes/All the time, -Yes/Most of the times, -Yes/50% of the times, -No/Rarely, -No/Never

About senate reform... i think there are a LOT of flaws about the senate system that we can talk about... if we would like to talk about which one the public thinks is the most crucial... we could word a question like...

Q: Rank the following from most undemocratic (0) to most democratic (5) feature about the Senate? __ Senators can sit until 75 years old, __ Senators are appointed, __ Senators are not provincially equal, __ The Senate follows HoC, __The Senate has a ridiculously high salary for what they do ($132,000)

To summerize for late commers such as myself, these are the current questions we are considering:

• Senate Reform*

Q1:"What would you like to see happen to the Senate?" - Become elected - Have term limits - Be provincially equal (same number for all provinces) - Abolished

Q2: Rank the following from most undemocratic (0) to most democratic (5) feature about the Senate? __ Senators can sit until 75 years old, __ Senators are appointed, __ Senators are not provincially equal, __ The Senate follows HoC, __The Senate has a ridiculously high salary for what they do ($132,000)

• Electoral Reform*

Q3: Do you believe the current electoral system (FPTP) provides a fair result? A: - Yes/All the time, -Yes/Most of the times, -Yes/50% of the times, -No/Rarely, -No/Never

Q4: "Which of the following electoral systems do you think is the most fair?" - First Past the Post - Alternative Vote - Proportional Representation - Single Transferable Vote - Mixed Member Plurality - Don't Know

Q1: :"What would you like to see happen to the Senate?" Become elected - Have term limits - Be provincially equal (same number for all provinces) - Abolished

It seems to me that at the very least this question should have an option of "Do nothing" - we should have an option for people who favor conserving the existing senate and we should probably have "Other reform"- we should not box people into the reforms we can foresee

Also, will we allow people select more than one option? Otherwise some one who wants an elected senators who are not apointed for life would have to choose between "elected senate" and "term limits"

Totally agree with Riley about letting respondents choose more than one option, which is why my question has it on a rank scale.

I was hoping for everyones thoughts on this one specifically:

Q: Rate the following from most undemocratic (0) to most democratic (5) feature about the Senate? __ Senators can sit until 75 years old, __ Senators are appointed, __ Senators are not provincially equal, __ The Senate follows HoC, __The Senate has a high salary considering what they do ($132,000) [Can use each number as many times as you wish]

This way we can figure out what respondents feel about each option compared to another.

Thoughts?

Quinn: Our senate questions are pretty loaded to cast the senate in a negative light especially the last question on salary. Rather than state the senators' salaries are "high", we could rephrase it:

Is the Senate cost effective? -) No, the senate is very expensive for what it does -) The Senate is a little bit expensive for what it does -) The Senate is cost effective -) The Senate is very cost effecive -) I'm not sure

I think overall our senate questions are suggesting that the senate ought to be a democratic institution, which is not a given. An Undemocratic senate which exists to check the excess of democracy might be what some people want. 

It seems that senate reform is a big enough issue that we could easily use all five questions to address it if we decide to go in that direction.

Sorry, I did something which put half my comment in a weird box. it reads: "I think overall our senate questions are suggesting that the senate ought to be a democratic institution, which is not a given. An Undemocratic senate which exists to check the excess of democracy might be what some people want. "

I think it could be worthwhile to ask some kind of question regarding peoples' understanding of how STV works... I have a feeling that a lot of people don't understand how it works and can't be bothered to figure it out because it is so complicated.

I think electoral and senate reform are good choices but part of me thinks that they might be a bit overdone... There seems to be less information about what Canadians think of the political role of judges. (Especially since our Constitution, amending formula and Charter of Rights are relatively recent (1982) compared to countries such as the US...

I like Riley's suggestion for adding a "no change" option to the senate. It would be very interesting to see which types of people (age wise really) like the way the senate currently works. How much context are we allowed to give for the questions? For the "cost efficient" senate question, we'd have to state the amount a senator makes/how much the senate costs to function. Without also giving information on what types of a jobs a senator is responsible for, just giving a number saying "a senator makes $132,000 a year" may lead to people thinking, "that's way to much" without giving that a context.

Blythe, I agree with you that people do not understand how STV works (many political science students don't!), but how would we frame a question to pinpoint those who know/don't know how the system works and to what extent they do/do not understand it? Also, I don't think electoral and senate reform are overdone, but we could definitely include a judiciary question. I would like to pursue what people know about the judiciary. To be honest, I am not very familiary with how it works in Canada. Maybe we could ask a question about a recent judicial decision? This will gauge how informed BC citizens are about this branch of government.

Going on with Blythe and Deanie, do you think its fair to ask a conceptual/quiz question about the STV to pinpoint those that understand & dont understand? I would be interested in the relationship between years of education and knowledge of STV.

A question like: "In an STV system, how does the voting system work?" -) You rank candidates -) You vote for one candidate -) You vote for the party -) I don't know

Or is this going too far ....

I strongly agree with Deanie's point that the question about Senators' salaries has to be put in context to make the question more neutral and to inform the participant.

To recap, some roles of Senators include: - attending caucus meetings and voice concerns - voicing regional/territorial interests - reviewing legislation and delaying and/or voting down bills (like the recent bill on climate change that passed the Lower House) - sitting on committees and studying issues - giving announcements on behalf of the government - meeting with constituents, hosting roundtables, etc.

Again responding to Deanie, the recent prostitution ruling by the Ontario Superior Court brought the power of judges into the public spotlight. Some complained that prostitution should be a matter of the House of Commons, not the judiciary. Then again, by using an example of a judicial ruling, the question would be tainted – some would evaluate the question as relating to prostitution (or whatever example) as opposed to the power of the judiciary.

To add on Riley's question, perhaps we could ask something like:

Consider the role of Senators in reviewing legislation among other duties. Is the cost of the Senate effective? -) No, the senate is very expensive for what it does -) The Senate is a little bit expensive for what it does -) The Senate is cost effective -) Yes, the Senate is very cost effecive -) I'm not sure

By adding the first sentence, we are encouraging the participant to ponder about what the Senate does. This way, we can gauge a more accurate response as to what people actually think about the cost of the Senate. Thoughts?

I think if we include a question about the judiciary it shoud aim to discover how Canadians feel about the law-making rule that the Court plays. We could do a little research and choose a prominent case where the Supreme Court has made a big decision (such as a ruling on Prostitution, gay marriage or another big constitutional issue) and ask how respondents felt about this decision. Were they happy about the outcome? Do they think that the role played by judges in important? Do they think that judges should have the power to make that kind of decision? Do they think judges have too much power over parliament? What about the Notwithstanding Clause?

Obviously a lot of thought would have to be put into how these questions would be posed/worded but I think it would be worthwhile to include something on this topic in addition to whatever we do for electoral and senate reform.

law-making *role* that the Court plays.. sorry bout the typo guys... it's been a long Thursday.

So I'm still wondering how many people have strong opinions on these things. I'm fine with doing this if we want to run a bit of a test sample. What if everyone asks someone who is *not* a student in Political Science to see if they have a definite position on the question Blythe put forward. If our preliminary survey gets some definite results, I'm all for it.

Since the case with judicial discretion just came up in the repeal of Ontario's prostitution law, why not use this format:

1. Have you heard about the repeal of prostitution law? (Yes/No)

2. In this case, do you think the judge acted outside their discretion? (Yes/No/Not Sure)

3. Do you think judges should have more discretion to decide in cases similar to these? (Yes/No/Not Sure)

4. Do you think this compromises Parliament's power to make laws? (Yes/No/Not Sure)

I'll ask a few people later today to see what results I get.

We now have three possible topics- senate, electoral and judicial reform. I think it would be best to focus on one of these areas rather than split our questions- otherwise we'll only get 1-2 questions per topic. This doesn't seem enough to achieve anything other than a pretty shallow handling of the topic.

For my part I would suggest focusing on either BC electoral reform or federal senate reform, as these are the subjects our respondents will likely have an opinion on- Judicial reform might be confusing considering the diffrent levels of courts: Blythe you mention the ontario ruling on prostitution as a Supreme Coure verdict, but it was Ontario Superior court verdict- a pretty easy mistake to make, and one I can easily see confusing the respondents. It might be too obscure to poll British columbians on an ontario court ruling.

I think the most intuitiive subeject to poll BC residents on is BC electoral reform. What do you guys think on focusing on this topic?

Just to address Markus' series of questions... if the respondent answers NO to the first question, does that mean they the next 3 questions they reply to will be a SYSMIS/data wont be useful at all? That would take up 4 of our 5 questions though...

I think splitting the questions between two big topics like senate reform and electoral reform would be the best course of action. Like what Riley said... by putting in a third topic, you're only going to get one response to it, and it probably won't provide very persuasive data.

Hi guys! My apologies for only joining the discussion now! I have read through everyone’s comments and suggestions and there are some great ideas here. I’ll start by adding my two cents based on what we’ve got so far...

I agree with Riley about polling on BC electoral reform and Federal senate reform. As has been said before...the judiciary system is somewhat complicated and has many levels, and I doubt we would get very informed opinions on Canadian judicial reform, if very many opinions at all! I personally can’t recall a recent event in the judiciary system that achieved *a lot* of media coverage other than the Ontario prostitution case, and going off of what Aaron said, we would likely get respondents expressing their feelings about prostitution, not the institution of the judiciary. And unless citizens find the judiciary undemocratic (meaning they’d need to have a grasp on how the judiciary works), the federal courts have generally been on the “peoples’” side, ruling in favour of citizens through their interpretations of Constitutional rights. If anything we’d get a lot of people who were happy with the status quo, a couple of people who are in favour of reform, and a lot of “don’t knows”.

For BC electoral reform questions, I liked what Markus said about finding a theory for why STV didn’t pass – perhaps finding out whether it was STV that BC residents didn’t like or if it was the idea electoral reform they didn't like. A lot of debate ensued post-election on whether or not BC residents were briefed properly on the complexities of STV. We could start by asking BC residents: 1) Did you vote in the 2008 referendum to change BC’s electoral system from FPTP to STV? 2) Do you agree with the following statement: Electoral reform in BC is necessary. 3) Do you agree with the following statement: BC residents were not given sufficient information on and explanation of the STV system prior to the 2008 referendum. 4) On a scale one (no understanding) through five (full understanding), rank your understanding of the Single Transferable Voting system.

Correction to my last paragraph: "A lot of debate ensued post-REFERENDUM on whether or not BC residents..."

The BC STV referendum seems like a great topic for a poll, being very on topic and relevant. Proposed Research Question: Did the STV fail to pass because British Columbians feel reform was unnecessary, or because they thought STV was more flawed than the current electoral system?

EDITED PROPOSED RESEARCH QUESTION: The previous research question might be poorly worded, and contains a fallacy of false alternatives. What I would like to know is "Why did 60% of respondents vote "no" to STV?" This new research avoids obvious causal assumptions.

Do you guys think a question like this could help address the research Question posed above?

Why did the STV not pass in BC? -) The Candidate ranking system is too confusing -) Political party policies become watered down to appease all groups in the House -) Different thresholds in urban vs. rural locations will increase cleavages in these areas -) All the above -) I voted FOR STV