A matter of opinion

For all the examples of the consistent gap between the Cons' fantasy world and reality, there may be none better than how Deceivin' Stephen and company have treated publicly-funded opinion polling. And this week - with surprisingly little public attention - the Cons added yet another indication of their utter distaste for the factual.

Remember that before the Cons took power, one of their frequent (and not entirely unjustified) slams against the Libs involved the amount of public money spent on opinion research.

Of course, once they took power, the Cons immediately increased polling to a record level - which only became public when a report designed to embarrass the Libs instead blew up in the Cons' face. In response, the Cons promised to cut polling expenses by $10 million per year - being over 30% of the amount previously being spent across the federal government.

Which brings us to this from Thursday's Hansard:

Mr. Chris Warkentin (Peace River, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, for years the former Liberal government wasted huge amounts of money on public opinion research with little or no oversight. Liberal-friendly firms conducted hundreds of unnecessary surveys and polls at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.

Recently, the government made a strong commitment to bring the free spending Liberal ways of the past to an end and ensure that public opinion research is used in an effective way.

Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works please update the House as to what progress has been made up to this date and what Canadians can expect moving forward?

Mr. James Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer this question from my good friend from Peace River and I will answer this question very clearly.

We recently announced reforms in order to change the public opinion research regime that is in place in different departments. I am pleased to report to the House and to taxpayers that we have reduced public opinion research and polling by departments by 20% over last years, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

That's right: the Cons have now failed to meet the target which they promised on a percentage basis, even when they've conspicuously limited that percentage to "departments" rather than including entities which wouldn't fit under that classification (which seems worded to exclude the Privy Council in particular). And what cuts the Cons have made only appear have put spending back at the same level which they used to criticize coming from the Libs.

Now, this surely wouldn't be the first time the Cons have fallen short of their own supposed standards, or taken up the kind of behaviour they used to decry while in opposition.

But then there's the Cons' response - which may be the only part of the whole story which actually does set them apart. Rather than seeing their track record of feigning outrage then breaking promises as cause for the slightest bit of embarrassment, the Cons are apparently sufficiently proud to want to highlight it for themselves - and even to claim that it somehow sets them above the party which used to earn their vitriol for doing the exact same thing.

All of which suggests that the first and most profound obstacle to holding the Cons accountable for their actions is that they're either dim enough not to recognize their own shortcomings, or detached enough from reality not to care. And it's hard to see those attributes polling well under any circumstances.