Poll shows two-thirds of Canadians back long-gun registry

[Stop Staring at my Rack]

Poll shows two-thirds of Canadians back long-gun registry
By Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News October 5, 2010 Comments (7)
•Story•Photos ( 1 )•Video ( 1 )
Two-thirds of Canadians support the controversial long-gun registry and even voters who back Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives are split on the issue, a new poll has found.Photograph by: Getty Images, npOTTAWA — Two-thirds of Canadians support the controversial long-gun registry and even voters who back Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives are split on the issue, a new poll has found.


The national survey conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global Television finds that support for the registry stands at 66 per cent nationally. Moreover, support is strong in regions throughout the country — even though Harper has said his party will not "rest" until it abolishes the registry.


But the poll also finds that although Harper is running counter to public opinion on the issue, his stance is only deepening his support among fervent Tories and that the NDP risks losing votes in the next election among Canadians unhappy with that party's internal divisions.


"This has very substantive resonance and support across the country," Ipsos Reid senior vice-president John Wright said Tuesday of the registry.


"Despite all of its woes about the money spent, it seems most people in this country think that it's a good thing and that if you have a gun it should be registered. Clearly, the police departments and others who have waded in have had an effect."


The survey, conducted Sept. 27 to Oct. 4, comes in the wake of a highly publicized parliamentary battle in which Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner failed in her effort to abolish the registry. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had required several of his MPs who previously opposed the registry to vote to support it in the Commons, and several New Democrat MPs chose on their own to also switch their votes.


The new poll finds that support for the registry is highest in Quebec (81 per cent), followed by Ontario (66 per cent) British Columbia (61 per cent), Atlantic Canada (59 per cent) and Saskatchewan/Manitoba (57 per cent).


In Alberta, the only place where the majority oppose the registry, the public is split — with half (53 per cent) in opposition and the other half (47 per cent) in support.


Here's what people think of the registry, broken down by their voting intentions:


- Conservative voters: 47 per cent support; 53 per cent oppose.


- Liberal voters: 78 per cent support; 22 per cent oppose.


- NDP voters: 67 per cent support; 33 per cent oppose.


- Bloc Quebecois voters: 88 per cent support; 12 per cent oppose.


- Green party voters: 68 per cent support; 32 per cent oppose.


The poll finds that 23 per cent of Canadians say the results of the recent parliamentary tussle over Hoeppner's bill could have an impact on how they vote in the next election.


Of those voters, roughly half (12 per cent) said they will vote for a party that wants to abolish the long-gun registry while the remainder (10 per cent) said they will vote for a party that proposes to maintain it.


Of the Tory supporters, 18 per cent said it will further drive them toward supporting a party that supports the abolition of the registry, with only six per cent saying they'd switch their vote to party that wants to maintain it.


Of New Democrats, 14 per cent said it makes them want to vote for a party that advocates killing the registry, while nine per cent indicate they still want to support a party that supports it.


Wright said the poll's message is simple: Canadians strongly support the registry, but there are enough pockets of discontent in places like the West for Harper to use the issue as a "political wedge" and chip away at the NDP's voter support.


"The Tories are reinforcing their base but they're not opening it up," he said. "If anything, what they're doing is destabilizing other parties and they're hoping to gain from that advantage."


For its poll, Ipsos Reid surveyed 1,064 adults in an online panel. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Po...#ixzz11c8zVqnP

[gramps73]

I would think that if you ask the right people these stats are right, if you ask the general public you might find something different.

[ishootbambi]

you can read poll results any way you choose to and make them support whatever position you choose to. break it down to urban centers of 50000 plus and id bet majority support for it, rural and smaller center would oppose i suspect. from this poll, i see vancouver montreal and toronto having a big say.

[BlackHeart]

Originally Posted by Stop Staring at my Rack

For its poll, Ipsos Reid surveyed 1,064 adults in an online panel.......

Great cross cut of population........an online panel.....where the twitter twits get things going.

2/3 of these people also have their opinions formed for them by CBC. I would bet that these are people like police chiefs, peta supporters, vegans, green peacers, etc.

[Pudelpointer]

Good catch on the "online poll" Blackheart.

In reality an internet poll means SFA.

[airbornedeerhunter]

Wow, that means two thirds of those polled are complete and total idiots!

[4thredneck]

Originally Posted by gramps73

I would think that if you ask the right people these stats are right, if you ask the general public you might find something different.

X2 after they do enough polls I am sure they know who to phone to get the answers they want.

[rugatika]

Wright says it shows strong support for the registry...lol. Anybody that supports the registry is NOT going to be voting for the conservatives. Harper won't lose a single vote by trashing it...nor will he gain a vote either...although he will likely gain a lot of volunteer support and donations from his base.

Support for the registry is definitely NOT strong. Except amongst political hacks like the police chiefs that love the additional power it gives them. When dealing with gov't always remember that more programs means more bureaucrats and more handlers and managers and more funds. In the gov...the more underlings you have reporting to you the more you make. It's in everyone's interest in gov to expand. So....it's no wonder there is gov support for this piece of crap. Leviathan has been fed.

[roadkill]

The issue is that polls like this are problematic. I honestly didn't buy the polls that came out the other way any more than I buy this one. Polls are done by people who *want* them to come out one way or the other.

[KegRiver]

Wikipedia defines an online panel as; a group of pre-screened respondents who have expressed a willingness to participate in surveys and/or customer feedback sessions

I wonder what pre-screened might mean in this situation?

If the Liberals believe that the gun registry is a matter of national security, I wonder what they would do to preserve it?

Now I realize that the fact that this gun registry, bill C68, was conceived, passed through parliament and made law in the same year as the last Quebec referendum, is purely coincidental.
And the fact that every significant date associated with bill C68 meshes perfectly with a significant date for the referendum is also coincidental.
The fact that the PM at the time was a Liberal who tried to strangle a protester with his bare hands and the same PM ordered the RCMP to pepper spray protesters in Vancouver, by no means shows the he would go overboard and implement a law for the sole intent of disarming part of the country that He may or may not have believed was about to vote to separate.
There is absolutely not proof that the PMs intent was anything other then to make Canadians safer. He did say that what spurred him to action was the shooting of 14 young women at a École Polytechnique in Montreal
on December 6, 1989.
When he became PM in 1993 I guess he was just to busy then to think about the safety of Canadians because gun control wasn't mentioned until two years later. Then suddenly it became a priority.
It went from introduction to law in less then one year. Something very very few law bills manage to do.

Yes this is all just a coincidence and those pre-screened participants were a perfect cross section of Canadian society.

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by Pudelpointer

Good catch on the "online poll" Blackheart.

In reality an internet poll means SFA.

Ummm well, we have pointed to a few online polls that favour our side as meaning quite a bit. Perhaps I'm mistaken but wasn't the poll conducted by our member in Edmonton of Canadian police officers an online poll?

I don't think this poll is unrepresentative of the general population. I think the majority of people still do support the gun registry. My argument is that their support is based on ignorance and purposely misleading "facts", so we have more work to do. I think it's going in the right direction however. We are ahead of where we were a year ago.

[KegRiver]

I been thinking, bad habit I know, but non-the-less, Ive been thinking.
If I wanted to poll Canadians in the hope of finding support for this gun law,
the very best time to do so would be fall.
Most likely, the month of September.

In my experience that is the busiest time for rural folks. There is the harvest, taking up the garden, hunting, moving cattle from summer pasture to winter range. Rural folks are very very busy at this time of year.

I wonder,,,, you think the folks who conducted this poll knew that?