Polling On The Freedom Convoy Does Not Reflect Reality

Both during the time the Freedom Convoy was parked around downtown Ottawa and after police raided the protest zone, polling companies have been pushing out hastily made polls about the event. The polls the companies put out are supposedly gauging what Canadians thought about the Freedom Convoy, but these polls seem oddly disconnected from reality.

Probably the most accurate mainstream polling that came out was from Research Co. which still seems out of step with public support, seeing as the Freedom Convoy was very likely the biggest reason for loosening restrictions all over Canada.

Over and over again polling companies put out results that seemed to lock the Freedom Convoy in with the support of only 27 to 35 percent of Canadians. It is noteworthy that a lot of polls were done “online” which is another way of saying that voluntary subscribers to the polling companies’ email lists were the only ones included in the polling sample.

It is basically a fact at this point that Canadian polling companies have a strong left-wing bias, and that there seems to be a *wink wink* *nudge nudge* type relationship between the liberal political establishment and the polling companies whose polls almost never contradict establishment’s narratives. 

The problem with polling about the Freedom Convoy, to begin with, is that it assumes a large enough sample size of people actually know what the protest movement was about, and cared deeply about the manner in which the peaceful protest occured despite not affecting them personally.

What has been more telling about the Freedom Convoy’s popularity is the polling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Because Trudeau was undeniably harsh on the truckers and convoy supporters protesting in Ottawa, seeing his disapproval rating spike during the protest was particularly insightful into people’s true feelings about the convoy. 

All this in spite of multiple polling companies releasing results supposedly showing Canadians overwhelmingly thought the use of the Emergencies Act was justified.

Trudeau’s popularity falling at the same time a large majority of people are in favour of the Emergencies Act use does not make sense. Only one of the results can be truly reflective of reality and it would seem more logical that people were upset with Trudeau’s overbearing handling of the peaceful protesters.

It stands to reason that if Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act was indeed wildly popular he wouldn’t have panicked and revoked his emergency powers only nine days in, despite previously indicating he would hold onto them for longer.

Trudeau and the Liberals’ own internal polling was likely showing their popularity sliding fast with likely voters. Those who supported the Freedom Convoy are probably extremely unlikely to vote for anyone who criticized it, while those who disapproved of the convoy, likely based on legacy media coverage, are equally unlikely to view the convoy as a major election issue.

The Liberal Party may have actually inflicted severe damage on themselves by being as intolerant of the Freedom Convoy protesters as they were. Their actions alienated centrist voters while only pleasing their hardcore base that was already going to vote for them no matter what they did, especially seeing as even Jagmeet Singh and the NDP took a less militant approach to the truckers. 

It will be interesting to see if the Liberals’ aggressive handling of the Freedom Convoy is going to affect suburban voter turnout for the Conservative Party in the next election. No matter what the polling companies show, election turnout is what truly matters, and based on Trudeau’s back-peddling, he didn’t do the Liberal Party any favours over the past few weeks.