There's an old joke about political polling that before you begin constructing the survey you determine the results you want to see.

In other words, if you construct a poll in a certain way you can lead people to provide certain responses and you can then wave the results around publicly to back up your argument.

Today the Manitoba Government Employees Union released poll results(click here) that seem to fit the old joke. The answers provide back-up for the union's desire to have the provincial government keep on spending away recklessly; thus protecting their union jobs.

If you look at the construction of the poll, it seems to be anything but neutral. Take a look at one of the first questions:

"Which one of the following summarizes what you believe should be the Manitoba government's top priority as it puts together its budget for the coming year.

Protect health care, roads, justice and other public services...47.7%
Reduce taxes...10.7%
Balance the provincial budget, even if it means cutting services/laying off workers 18.6%
Stimulate the economy and help create jobs...20.4%
Don't know/Refused...2.6%" 

I worked for a polling firm many moons ago, and although I'm no expert in poll construction, I think the bias towards spending more money is pretty clear in the MGEU's poll.

The aforementioned question cleverly mentions services people actually care about like health care and uses the words "protect" to help make it seem like a no brainer - keep health care or watch it fall apart. This of course ignores the fact the health care system - and the government overall - has plenty of fat to cut that wouldn't actually impact the end user.

Who could forget the rooftop patio and BBQ at the new WRHA office, the employees that were given paid time to go Christmas shopping, the guy who spent four years doing nothing but reading novels? The list goes on and on (you can read more examples at www.GregLied.ca).

Had the union wanted a more honest response, they could have posed the question in a more neutral manner:

"Which one of the following summarizes what you believe should be the Manitoba government's top priority as it puts together its budget for the coming year.

a) Reduce spending to balance the budget
b) Reduce taxes
c) Increase spending to hopefully create jobs
d) Don't know/refused

However, if I wanted really bias results the other way, I might suggest the question look like:

"Which one of the following summarizes what you believe should be the Manitoba government's top priority as it puts together its budget for the coming year.

a) Cut wasteful spending, bloated salaries and useless positions
b) Start bringing Manitoba's taxes down to the Canadian average to save families money
c) Increase spending with hopes it will create jobs
d) Don't know/refused

Later on in the poll it again suggests that taxes be raised in order to "protect" certain services. Nowhere are people given the option to talk about all the waste in government or the fact that cutting the bureaucracy doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in service levels. See this example from Indianapolis to see how governments can reduce costs and actually improve services at the same time.

Finally, page 15 of the MGEU report suggests the poll was conducted between January 22 and January 31...which leads me to an interesting email I received on January 27:

"Colin,

I fielded a call last week, and it happened to be a survey, apparently for our government. The questions were all very slanted, and was perhaps the worst survey I have ever responded to.

The questions were basically should we increase taxes or cut services to seniors, raise taxes or cut public employees, on and on. Questions that seemed to force or lead someone to say they'd rather raise personal income tax or raise pst to 8%. I tried to tell the survey person that there should be questions about whether the government should get its spending under control, but that wasn't in there.

I expect that the results will come out, and the NDP will have "public" support for raising taxes based on this survey.

Some surveys are OK, this one was terrible." 

Was this person talking about the MGEU poll? Who knows...but it certainly makes you go "hmmm"...