The results of two polls — one conducted in April by EKOS Research and another last week by Ipsos Public Affairs — seem to imply, at first glance, that Canadians are becoming increasingly insistent the Liberal government hold a referendum on electoral reform.

Neither EKOS president Frank Graves nor Ipsos’ CEO Darrell Bricker, however, think their firm’s polls can be seen as a continuum.

They asked slightly different questions about the same subject but got very different answers.

So how do Canadians really feel?

On April 14-15, EKOS put their electoral reform referendum question to 1,176 Canadians as follows:

Some people say that any change to the electoral system is so fundamental that it would require a national referendum. Others say that a rigorous program of public engagement and Parliamentary review should be sufficient. Which statement is closer to your point of view?

They found an evenly split population: 46.7 per cent felt a referendum was necessary; 46.7 per cent didn’t; and 6.6 per cent skipped the question.

The poll, which was conducted using EKOS’ High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, reached Canadians on landlines and cell phones. EKOS reported a margin of error of +/- 2.86 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Roughly five weeks later — May 18-20 — Ipsos posed the question to Canadians this way:



One of the commitments that Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberals ran on during the election was that, if they were elected, they would make major changes to Canada’s election system and how we elect Members of Parliament. Their commitment did not specify exactly how they would change the system. The following statements are about this commitment. For each, please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree: ‐ The Liberals should not make major changes to Canada’s election system without holding a national referendum to get the public’s approval for the changes.

Despite a slim majority of Canadians (52 per cent) telling Ipsos the existing electoral system isn’t fine as it is, a much larger majority nonetheless voiced their insistence on the need for a referendum if changes are made.

Almost four in ten (37 per cent) strongly agreed with the statement that the Liberals should not change the electoral system without a referendum and 36 per cent somewhat agreed, for a total of 73 per cent in favour of a referendum.

In contrast, eight per cent strongly disagreed with a referendum and 19 per cent somewhat disagreed.

Ipsos’ poll was conducted using online interview panels and reached 1,005 Canadians.

“The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled,” Ipsos noted on their methodology.

Given that Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef unveiled the details of the government’s parliamentary committee on electoral reform on May 11 — in between the two polls — to negative reviews in the editorial pages and consistent criticism from the opposition, it’s certainly conceivable that Canadians might have become more cynical about the electoral reform process and convinced, as a result, that a referendum is needed.

But the different results could also have to do with how the questions were posed.

Bricker thought the “rigorous program of public engagement and Parliamentary review” language in the EKOS question may have led some to accept a process that doesn’t involve a referendum, since it presupposes an acceptable alternative is possible.

“The bottom line is that people — if you gave them their druthers — they’d rather have a referendum. But if you could convince them that this process, whatever it was, was legitimate — did a better job and all those things — they would be prepared to at least look at it, which divides the population in about half,” Bricker said.

“I would say (for) half, the only way it can happen is with a referendum. And then there’s other people, depending on the conditions, they might think a little bit differently. And I think that that’s what his (EKOS) polling suggests.”

The Ipsos question, on the other hand, doesn’t define “major changes” to the election system. Some Canadians, for example, might think changing from first-past-the-post to some of form of proportional representation requires a referendum, but making voting mandatory, another reform under consideration, doesn’t.

“I think a deeper probe is required to find out where Canadians are on this,” EKOS President Frank Graves told iPolitics Tuesday.

He’s hoping to go back into the field soon. And Bricker, for his part, is already thinking about ways their electoral reform referendum question could be fine-tuned.

“The question to ask — and maybe I’ll ask it the next time — is would this be appropriate? The question Frank asked. And then follow with, if you knew the two opposition parties were opposed to the government proceeding on this basis, do you still think it’s legitimate to do this?”