A poll of 100 people on what they think of an election taking place and what the issues are

By Staff

September 16th, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

Last August the Gazette did a very short poll of Burlington residents asking how they felt about the calling of a federal election.  The vast majority were opposed to an election at that time.  Views have shifted.

We had our team do a follow up poll asking:

Should this election be taking place?

What are the issues? Rank them 1,2,3,4

Climate change
Housing
Budget – taxes
Covid19
Other

We noted gender and age spread from rough age under 25; 26-40; 41-55, and over 60.  We did not ask for an age – we made an educated guess.

Max Bowder and Ryan O’Dowd were out on the streets of the city: O’Dowd covered downtown Burlington, Appleby mall and Aldershot, which we called SOUTH, while Bowder covered everything north of QEW to Dundas which we called NORTH – he did not venture north of Dundas.

They both interviewed just over 50 people each.

A breakdown of the data by the part of the city that xxx took place is below.

Question:                                       NORTH          SOUTH     TOTAL
Election taking place NO               30                  21            51
Election taking place YES              11                  17            28
Election taking place No opinion  12                  12            24

THE ISSUES NORTH SOUTH
Housing-                                      12                   21            33
Budget/taxes-                              10                  12             22
Climate change-                           7                    10            17
Covid-                                          13                  5               18

O’Dowd found it “interesting that the numbers shifted, at least in my data, from strongly opposed to mostly in favor of it or indifferent. I suspect this is because that the election was a majority power grab attempt has faded from the collective zeitgeist due to how unlikely a majority looks. But can’t say for sure.”

The Age breakout was

26-40:           22
41-55            12
60+               10
Under 25       5

Gender breakdown

Female-27
Male-22

Ryan O’Dowd

O’Dowd found that “Generally there seemed to be a lot of apathy towards the election but the negativity around the calling of the election seems to have subsided. Which was an odd dichotomy. COVID with only 5 first place votes was rather shocking.

“This suggests to me that the people surveyed aren’t all too worried about Trudeau’s decision to call a pandemic election but are disillusioned by their choices.”

Bowder found that “A vast majority of people believed that now was not the time for an election because of how much it costs. The few that did feel that the election should happen now felt that it was good for the general public to have an election so they could review their options.

“Main concerns were to do with Covid-19 because it is the most impactful thing in their lives right now. A close second on people’s issues was housing as they feel homes in Burlington are becoming too expensive.”

Among the comments Bowder got were:

“You know this democracy is very messy but hey, dictatorships are clean and easy, I would rather live in a messy democracy than a clean dictatorship.” – Male, white, plus size.

“Climate change is up there, jobs for students and their entire education aren’t getting enough benefits anymore. I’d also like stiffer penalties for gun crimes.”

Max Bowder

“It’s halfway through the mandate, fourth wave, the delta wave, Trudeau wants us to go yea. It’s not to everybody’s taste but I can see why.”

“Not concerned about Covid because with Covid itself and what’s going on and everything else it is just being used as a tool for something else or to advance an agenda, climate change, I’m not too concerned about it, I feel we as Canadians have done a lot to help absolve it. Housing is awful right now, taxes terrible, and just overall budgeting of the economy is a disaster.”

“The whole election is taking place sooner than it should be… with no real time for preparation and personally I feel it is time for Trudeau to leave and get him outa here and we need to get Doug Ford outa here as well and start fresh.”

“I feel right now we are in the motion of a change, it’s not just for Canada, it’s for the world, it’s going to affect politics, religion, money, everything.”

“I’m actually going to vote once, for the first time ever, because I have never voted cause there has never really been in my eyes, candidates I would support, but right now I feel it’s a critical time to support people who don’t vote to make a change.”

Related news story:

A survey of what Burlingtonians in north part of the city think of a federal election taking place now.

What they thought about the election call in the southern part of the city

Max Bowder and Ryan O’Dowd are Local Journalism Initiative reports with the Gazette as part of a federal government endeavour to improve local news reporting.