New Poll – it doesn’t add up

It was revealed on April 30th that one in four British Columbians were opposed to open net pen salmon farming. Problem is, the poll wasn’t all that representative.

By Kenny Leslie

SeaWestNews

I remember from my university days, when studying research methods and analysis that any poll, survey or questionnaire had to be representative.

The poll conducted by Mainstreet on behalf of Wild First lacked some of the major points.

British Columbia has approximately 4.8million residents.

The poll surveyed just under 1500 people.

That’s a percentage that falls to cover 0.03% of the population. I can’t understand how an opinion poll can do a tally based on such a small group, likely from one area.

We have to assume that this is done without bias, but I find that hard to acknowledge on such a small scale when it is backed by one of the groups that is against the open net pen systems.

How do we know that this is a random sampling and not a skewed result? Also where did the calls take place? Large population centres?

Ask yourself this, would our opponents accept a poll that was taken from a pro open net pen group?

Any thoughts?

Kenny Leslie

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The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,496 adults between April 10 and April 15