On selective standards

Ipsos Reid's poll on perceptions of government action is being portrayed as representing an even split between issues which are favourable and unfavourable to the Cons. But before drawing any strong conclusions, it's worth noting how the poll was perfectly tailored to fit the Cons' messaging:

For its survey, Ipsos Reid asked Canadians if they thought the federal government was “getting things done” on various issues.

Here are the areas where a majority think the government is getting things done:
...
However, there are some other issues where a majority of Canadians think the government is “not getting anything done.”

Now, it's first worth noting that the choice offered to respondents makes for a rather incomplete picture. In theory, it's entirely possible to be seen as "getting things done" while believing that the actions taken are too slow, or represent the wrong choices to deal with a topic. So even absent some other distorting factor, the nominally positive responses are likely to signal that a respondent has heard the Cons talk about an issue - not that there's any particular agreement with the action taken.

But the larger problem is that the "getting things done" language perfectly mirrors the Cons' own choice of spin on their time in government - which means that Ipsos Reid's poll figures to do little but test and reinforce a message the Cons have spent plenty of time and money advertising to the Canadian public.

Once those factors are taken into account, it's downright remarkable that there's an even split between issues where the Cons are seen as associated with their own spin, and those where they're seen as doing nothing at all. And that fact would seem to suggest that a message about the Cons as a do-nothing government has plenty of room for a positive response.