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When we reported this, we did not have the actual online survey and, as it turns out, we still do not.

But what we do have, thanks to Fair Vote Canada and one of its supporters, is several questions from what’s been described to me by a source inside the prime minister’s office as a “field-test survey” that is being done right now by the federal government’s contractor to do the nation-wide survey, Vox Pop Labs.

If you’ve ever taken a Vote Compass poll, that was the work of Vox Pop.

The Fair Vote Canada gang is certain the “field-test survey” that some of its members are being invited to complete is the actual survey that will be rolled out to all Canadians early in December. Fair Vote Canada, which is pushing hard for a change to a proportional representation system, believes the survey is biased towards the status quo.

But it turns out this is most definitely not the survey that will be rolled out to all Canadians, according to my PMO source. In fact, the PMO source says most of the questions in this field-test survey had already been discarded by Vox Pop’s client, the federal government.

Still: The real survey, when we see it, will be similar in the sense that it will be trying to gauge the values Canadians hold about democracy, our electoral and government institutions and so on. It will not be asking anyone if they prefer this voting system or that voting system to replace the voting system we currently have.

We should also note that there is no indication that the field-test survey Vox Pop is running right now was represented as an official government of Canada survey. (UPDATE: Read the letter from the CEO and founder of Vox Pop Labs explaining what happened). Moreover, the PMO source said that whatever data is collected by Vox Pop in this field-test survey will be neither asked for nor wanted by the federal government.