"Ordinary Canadians" want their wages and weapons

Outside the beltways of Canada, the Alliance starts to look very real, says Roy MacGregor

Larry Solway approached National Post columnist and author Roy MacGregor, who is following the Day campaign, for his thoughts on the campaign and the public mood, and found someone more cynical than himself.

I asked National Post columnist Roy MacGregor to comment on my suggestion that people tell the pollsters what they think pollsters want to hear; what makes them feel good about themselves. Roy said he'd rather not write a piece for us but invited me to quote him. Here's some of what he had to say:

  "You are dead on, Larry. I've always been peeved at a couple of things: polls that ask people what their concerns are, and the people usually say unemployment and environment - because they are Canadians and think they need to say what's expected of them. People with jobs rarely give a damn about those without. And the environment - well, who doesn't like apple pie, for heaven's sake."
 

"They were talking as if they were Canadians who suddenly found themselves on the CBC and knew that they had to sound like the CBC thought ordinary Canadians spoke"

  I repeated to Roy that I am cynical about the way people respond to polls. Pollsters seldom ask what good psychiatrists do when they get a too-easy answer: "What's really bothering you?" Roy was even more cynical than I am. "I once wrote a column in the (Ottawa) Citizen about CBC Forums, saying that there are three official languages in Canada, English, French and 'BarbaraSpeak.' I was referring to Ms Frum. At the time, the Meech Lake debate was obsessing us. They (the CBC Forums) thought they were bringing in "ordinary Canadians" who were speaking passionately from the heart. They were not. They were talking as if they were Canadians who suddenly found themselves on the CBC and knew that they had to sound like the CBC thought ordinary Canadians spoke. As the vote soon proved, the CBC was completely out to lunch on both Meech and Charlottetown."
  He answered my comment that issues like tax cuts are far more vote-getting than health care. In fact there are real issues, but we are stuck on surveys. "I think you're right. There's nothing happening out there, despite all the fury and headlines and attention.
  Then Roy hit me with something a lot of us on the Left (Roy is not) are hoping for: "I harbour a suspicion that the vote is going to be a shocker. I'm looking minority government, with Alliance much, much bigger than any of the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal talking heads can imagine. Want to find ordinary Canadians? Just step outside the three-city triangle and shout out the words "gun control"!

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