Pollster fears unreliable polls could trigger ban on surveys during elections

OTTAWA – One of Canada’s leading pollsters says he fears the day is fast approaching when public opinion polls will be banned during election campaigns.

John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos Global Public Affairs, says political horse-race polls have proved unreliable in a number of provincial elections and were wildly wrong again Monday in at least one of four federal byelections.

Wright blames shoddy polling methods by some companies and the media’s undiscerning appetite for polls — no matter how dubious — for dragging the industry’s reputation through the mud.

He says the market research industry needs to crack down on pollsters who don’t meet minimum standards and media outlets need to be far more selective about the polls they publish.

If that doesn’t happen soon, he predicts there’ll be a move to ban polls from being published during election campaigns.

A controversial Forum Research poll on the eve of Monday’s byelections gave the Liberals in Manitoba’s Brandon-Souris a 29-point lead; in the end, the Conservatives eked out a win with 44.1 per cent of the vote to 42.7 for the Liberals.