[SWAF-Potluck] Federal survey process on sex laws scientifically flawed but still had value, critics say

[Andy Sorfleet]

http://www.vancouversun.com/
VANCOUVER SUN
Thursday, June 5, 2014

Peter O'Neil



Federal survey process on sex laws scientifically flawed but still had
value, critics say

Key survey took comments from anyone, unlike random selections used by pollsters

[photo caption]
Justice Minister Peter MacKay's department indicated it relied heavily
on an open online survey, despite the lack of controls against bias,
such as random sampling.
Photograph by: Sean Kilpatrick , THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA -- Female law students armed with laptops hit Vancouver streets
earlier this year to help sex workers use a unique online government
survey to send a clear message to the Harper government -- don't
criminalize prostitution.

Over the same one-month period, in churches and among social
conservative-oriented circles in B.C. and across the country,
thousands were being urged to fill out the same survey. Their goal was
to make sure the government maintains criminal sanctions despite the
Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous December ruling that existing law
endangered sex workers' health and safety and were unconstitutional.

The government's consultation process was a refreshing and rare
example of participatory democracy that helped more than 31,000
Canadians feel they had a role in shaping a hotly-contested public
policy, according to political scientist Peter Loewen.

"I think governments should be doing this as much as possible," said
Loewen, who specializes in political psychology and public opinion
research at the University of Toronto.

But Loewen is troubled by Justice Minister Peter MacKay's assertion
that the survey, unscientific because it involved self-selected
participants rather than a randomly selected cross-section of the
public, was a measure of broad public support.

MacKay's spokeswoman, for instance, sought to justify the government's
plan, unveiled Wednesday, to target the buyers of sexual services by
saying it was "reflective" of the results of the online consultation.

"All Canadians were actively encouraged to participate in this
publicly accessible and inclusive online consultation. The
government's legislation took into account the input received from the
over 31,000 responses," Paloma Aguilar said Thursday.

The survey found 56 per cent supporting MacKay's get-tough approach,
compared to 44 per cent against targeting so-called "johns" who buy
sex.

The survey was an important opportunity for Canadians with strong
views to express them, "but this is not a measure of what the average
Canadian thinks," according to Loewen.

A far more accurate measure, he said, would be polls like the
government's $175,000 Ipsos survey done after the December court
ruling. However, the government has so far refused to release the
results of that survey, which involved random sampling.

The Montreal newspaper La Presse this week cited an internal memo
warning that the results, "which do not reflect current government
policies (on targeting buyers of sexual services), may require
explanations."

Loewen said both the online survey and the Ipsos poll are valid measuring tools.

"If the government knows how Canadians feel about the issue (thanks to
an internal poll) they should go ahead and release it," he said. "It
may provide a good counterbalance to what the more informed and
motivated parties are telling them in the online consultation."

Pivot Legal Society litigation director Katrina Pacey, who helped
organize the sex trade worker outreach effort in Vancouver, was more
blunt.

"They are hiding numbers from the public that we deserve to see."

Carleton University political scientist Scott Bennett agreed that
traditional polling would be a better gauge, since an online survey
"is subject to far too much subjective interpretation."

Polling experts say online surveys, where respondents are
self-selected, are always vulnerable to manipulation by interest
groups.

At least three major social conservative groups, for instance, seized
the opportunity to urge their followers to participate in the February
and March online survey -- the Institute for Canadian Values, the
anti-feminist REAL Women of Canada, and the Evangelical Fellowship of
Canada.

The Evangelical Fellowship urged survey participation by a vast
membership that includes large B.C. churches like the Burnaby
Christian Pentecostal Church, the Sevenoaks Alliance Church in
Abbotsford, and the Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Surrey.

Evangelical Fellowship President Bruce Clemenger said the survey was a
"unique" opportunity for public participation.

"The consultation was not an opinion poll," he told The Sun Thursday.
"It was a survey that identified several possible approaches to
prostitution and invited Canadians to weigh in and comment on the
options. It was one of a variety of ways the government sought input
and afforded Canadians the opportunity to have their say."

Opinion polls would be another way of assessing views, and the weight
the government gives to those results "will depend in part on the
design of the (polling) process."

Pivot's Katrina Pacey was less generous, saying she urged sex worker
participation despite her concern that the survey was biased and that
there were no safeguards against individuals posting hundreds of
responses.

"This is not scientific by anyone's research standards. There is no
way this is representative of public opinion in any way."

She acknowledged that her group's decision to take part potentially
legitimized the process, but she said the outreach effort was
worthwhile.

"We find it very important to make sure sex workers have their say.
Even if the process was deeply flawed, and even though we truly
believe this government does not care what sex workers think and
experience, we thought it was important to encourage their voices and
find a way for them to participate."

Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Toronto and
head of the Institute of Canadian Values, also urged his more than
100,000 institute donors to participate, despite misgivings about the
process.

He noted that MacKay and the Conservative party were favouring the
so-called "Nordic Model" -- targeting the clients of prostitutes --
before the survey even went out.

"I don't believe the consultation had any impact," he said, adding
that the Justice department-managed survey amounted to "political
posturing."