Finalizing our 5 Questions for the Survey
Hello Folks:
We have been debating for a while now on the questions that are to be used for the survey, so, probably we all should come to an agreement on the 5 questions that we want to use for the survey. I have listed down below the several questions that have been suggested by members of this group and from here perhaps we can narrow down on the top 5 question to be used based on a consensus agreement?
1. Canada's mission in Afghanistan plays an important role in improving Canada-US relations. Should Harper's decision to withdraw by 2014 be influenced by our neighbor, considering the important role they play in our economy, defense and foreign policy in general.(Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree)
2. Below are figures on military spending as part of government expenditure: 19.3% US 18.7% Russia 7.1% Australia 6.3% Canada 6.3% UK 5.4% France Canada should increase or decrease its defense budget (next year, etc.) (Increase significantly 2. Increase 3. No Change 4. Decrease 5. Decrease significantly)
3. Canada currently spends this much ____ as a percentage of GDP on defense. Do you think Canada should increase or decrease its defense spending next year. (Increase significantly 2. Increase 3. No Change 4. Decrease 5. Decrease significantly)
4. Do you believe Defense should be a priority in Canada's National budget?
5. Canada should increase funding to national defense and peacekeeping programs in order to improve/raise Canada's role in the international community
6. Canada should increase its defense budget to invest in new military technologies which would increase the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces
7. Canada's relationship with the US is important with regards to our economic and national defense issues
8. Canada's Defense Policy is over reliant on the United States in terms of funding initiatives and agreements for North American Defense?
9. Do you have any interest in Canada's peace-keeping mission in Afghanistan
10. Canadian forces in Afghanistan should be focused on the training of Afghan army and police forces rather than the active participation in combat?
11. Do you feel Afghanistan is a safer place today after the Canadian Mission?
12. The Canadian government should increase regional funding in arctic communities to help increase the population and establish our sovereignty rather than to the military for border defence to protect existing claims.
13. Establishing our sovereignty in the Arctic should be a priority and more investment needs to be made to strongly assert that Canada is serious about claiming its sovereignty in the Arctic (Just created by myself since a lot of people have an interest in the Arctic)
Please note that the questions are not in order of any preference.
TALLY:
1.Nadeem
2. Jacqueline, Stephen, Bently, Nadeem, Amy
3.Bala, Jordan, Christopher, Nadeem, Amy
4.Ian
5.Jacqueline, Bala, Stephen, Jordan, Bently, Christopher, Amy, Ian
6.
7.Jacqueline, Bala, Stephen, Jordan, Bently, Christopher, Nadeem, Amy, Ian
8.Bala, Amy
9.Bala, Jordan
10.Bently, Ian
11.Jacqueline, Jordan, Christopher, Nadeem, Stephen
12.Ian
13.Bently, Amy
Other:Jacqueline
Thank you for making this post Bala,
I was just about to say that we need to organize our thread better so we can actually see the questions. Before we begin breaking down our questions, I think we need to decide what our focus is, whether we want to hone in on just Afghanistan or defence in general. For this thread, I don't think that we should all keep replying in a giant conversation. It makes tracking ideas very difficult.
If we first try to come up with a consensus on what we want to focus on, and then narrow these 13 questions down it will be much easier.
I think that we should broadly discuss defence and Canada's take on it, encorporating both general questions about our defence policy in addition to Afghanistan and Arctic sovereignty.
I agree with Jon here, we need narrow down on what we want to focus on for our survey in order to effectively select the best 5 questions for the survey, if everyone will have their own questions to ask and it will become too confusing and disorganized. I also think that we need to broadly discuss some aspect of Canada's defense policy as a whole and then perhaps have several questions on both Arctic sovereignty and the mission in Afghanistan which would give the survey a good balance. Also, if people can vote on the questions they want based on the focus of our survey then we could narrow down based on the choices we all have made and come up with a list before the midnight tomorrow- which I believe is the deadline.
I really like questions 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. I don't think however that the questions should be organized in that order. But those are the questions I would like to vote on.
I agree with Jon. Every time I sign onto this I don't know where to begin.
Are we starting the broad topic decision on this thread? Because I think Jon has a great way of incorporating a lot of the questions we've covered. If we ask broad and general questions we can include both issues of Afghanistan and the Arctic. We already have a huge list of questions we can ask, all we need to do is sub-categorize them into Afghanistan and the Arctic and make sure they flow within these categories as well. This will also allow us to gauge the differences in opinion about two significant situations regarding Canadian defense today.
I like the idea of broadening to include both the Arctic Sovereignty and Afghanistan, but this is more feasible in a longer survey. We have 5 questions and thats all. If we include general questions, then questions about Afghanistan and Arctic that leaves 1-2 questions on each subtopic, not enough to get any type of resourcefulness from the survey. I mean the 5 questions is pretty limited, so we have to make a choice here. In my opinion, we could broaden it but it takes away from any type of in depth analysis we could possibly do. Honestly, if we had more then 5 questions I would like the idea of subheadings and transitioning between topics, but I just think 5 questions is much too small a limit to do this here. Maybe it would better if we keep general questions like this one:
Below are figures on military spending as part of government expenditure: 19.3% US 18.7% Russia 7.1% Australia 6.3% Canada 6.3% UK 5.4% France Canada should increase or decrease its defense budget (next year, etc.) (Increase significantly 2. Increase 3. No Change 4. Decrease 5. Decrease significantly)
...and not have questions that specifically refer to Afghanistan or Arctic. What do you guys think? In a way then if we keep the questions general, we are still focused on defense but not focused on one issue like Afghanistan or Arctic, which were the concerns of some below. In my opinion, we keep it on defense in general like the question above, and not those that refer to our other two focuses directly.
Thoughts?
Btw, I think the assignment is due at 7pm tom, so should we say everyone get their votes on which questions they would prefer by around early afternoon? That way we can post it up on the final wall...
I agree with Jordan in that we should keep the topic primarily focused on general defense and Afghanistan
I like 3, 5, 7, and 11 right now...can't really decide on the last one yet.
Jordan, I understand your concern with making things too general and spread out. But I think if we can incorporate the questions of Arctic Sovereignty and Afghanistan to the larger picture of defence in general, it will be useful for our survey. When you guys vote, edit the top thread and put your name down next to the number of the question. I've already started with Jacquelin's. That way we can keep track of the number of votes per question.
I can see where Jordan is coming from, we have only 5 questions so i guess it's better to narrow it down to Canada's defense policy as a whole or if you guys wanted, we could narrow it down to either Afghanistan or Arctic sovereignty, because if we don't narrow down our questions for the topic, the questions might not have much of an impact would seem like as though as we are jumping from one topic to another without any focus on a particular matter at hand. Also, as Jordan mentioned, please try to vote before the class starts tomorrow or latest by 5pm so that we finalize the questions we want to use for the survey and put them up before 7pm...
I really like what Bala and Jonathan have done in keeping this forum organized. If you guys get a chance, it would be great if you could add your tallies via edit to Bala's original post above. We will be able to assess the results as a group tomorrow and we can get them at a glance via Bala's system.
I'm not sure if this was mentioned before in another one of the posts, but I think 2 and 3 are basically the same question so I think that we should stick to just having one of those questions regardless of whether or not they both have enough votes.
I think that is a fair assessment - guess we can whichever gets more votes between them and then select the next highest question with the most number of votes apart from these two questions...
Yea, We could just choose whichever gets the highest number of votes (oddly enough they both have 5 votes...so I guess whichever one is fine with the majority), but I think its about time to finalize our questions...the cutoff is at 7 and its already 5 so I think it would fair to cut it off real soon, and take the questions of people who took the time to vote, which look like the questions : 2,5,7,11. I have posted the questions 5, 7, and 11 on the final page under a final questions heading as it looks like those won't change in the next hour or so....but as for the other 2 it looks like a toss up between a bunch of questions.
It feels as if we choose either one of 2 or 3, like a Stephen had mentioned we will be left with a bunch of questions to choose from that have like 2 votes. I personally wouldn't mind keeping both questions cause it seems like that what the majority wants. Thoughts??
hurry times almost done!!, someone can put up the last 2 questions on the main page...i feel it should just be 2 and 3
Personally, I do not mind having both questions 2 and 3 because one addresses defense in general and the other one addresses military spending which are actually 2 seperate entities, hence, I think both questions look good to be on the main board and the rest of the questions have much fewer votes relative to questions 2 and 3.
Time was running low so I put 2 and 3 up hope this is okay with everyone, just didn't want us getting stuck with 3.
I also edited the main page so that it only includes our selection of the 5 questions to avoid any confusion. Hope this is okay with everyone.
Hey everyone,
The questions are fine. The majority of those were the ones I wanted to vote for anyways.