Cohort effects of Environics versus EKOS poll

Ask yourself the following question. Two polls taken at exactly the same time. Each as rigorous as the other. Two different results. EKOS has the Conservatives in a two point lead over the Liberals, Environics has the Liberals in a four point lead over the Conservatives. Here’s the obvious conclusion. The voting intentions elicited under the EKOS poll was a stand alone exercise, whereas the voting intentions of the Environics poll was posed after two questions that were focused on the Conservatives (and NDP’s) gross incompetence on the income trusts fiasco. This had a subliminal effect on the responses provided on the voter intention question and demonstrates the immense political power associated with pursuing the Marshall Savings Plan and the immense latent support for a party the exposes the incompetence of the Conservatives on the income trust fiasco.

These two questions were the swing factor between the Ekoc poll that had the Conservatives on top, and the Environics that had the Liberals on top. This is the clear and obvious conclusion in much the same manner as a side by side laboratory experiment

Q1. Income trusts are profit sharing investments in Canadian businesses that are popular with average Canadians saving for retirement. They are held by both pension funds and individual investors. In recent years, a number of these trusts have been taken over by foreign owners with the result that three times more tax revenues are now being lost than what the government’s policy was intended to address. Would you (support/not support)…the government taking action to keep the remaining income trusts in Canadian ownership in order to ensure that further tax revenues are not lost?


Q2. Arguing that it was losing tax revenues from income distributions paid out by income trusts, in 2011 the Federal Government plans to impose a 31.5 percent tax on the income from income trusts held by Canadians in their RRSPs. This tax is not being applied to pension funds, which will put the 75 percent of Canadians who do not have a pension at a disadvantage compared to those who do. A new savings plan called the Marshall Plan has been proposed that would eliminate the 31.5 percent tax and replace it with a tax on the annual income paid out from them. The government would preserve $6 billion in annual tax revenue, Canadians would not face double taxation on their holdings, and would be placed on a more level playing field with the pensions. Would you (support/not support) the creation of this type of plan?