Global News takes Canada’s Pulse
In an exclusive Global News poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid, thousands of Canadians were asked to share their thoughts on a myriad of subjects. Their feedback is revealed in Canada’s Pulse, an in depth analysis into what Canadians are thinking.
The poll reveals, for example, that 95 per cent of people in New Brunswick and 94 per cent in Saskatoon think their communities are great places to live.
It also reveals that Regina residents (79 per cent) are happier with their sex lives than other Canadians, and that many more of them (22 per cent) have driven drunk in the past year and gotten away with it.
A whopping 92 per cent of Vancouver residents and 86 per cent of Toronto residents think their respective cities are too expensive to live in.
Seventy-one per cent of residents in Edmonton approve of same-sex marriage, less than in any other big Canadian city.
Twenty eight per cent of Calgary residents would consider buying an iPhone over any other smart phone – the second highest rate in the country behind Regina (32 per cent).
The results also show that infrastructure is a major concern in communities across the country.
In the poll, 15 per cent of the respondents identified infrastructure as the most important local issue facing their communities.
That made it the top local concern along with healthcare (15 per cent), ahead of the economy (12 per cent), city taxes (11 per cent) and crime (eight per cent).
Darrell Bricker of Ipsos Reid says infrastructure issues are “plaguing cities right across the country,” and he attributes the problem to a mix of growing urban populations and dwindling government funding.
“The last decade in which more people lived in rural areas than in urban areas was the 1920s. Ever since then, people have been moving from rural areas to cities — and immigrants have been settling there too,” he told GlobalNews.ca.
“Most of the cities’ infrastructure was built immediately after the Second World War. Demographics were different then.
“The federal government is no longer involved with funding infrastructure, and the provinces are trying to meet healthcare costs,” he added.
“That means infrastructure becomes the responsibility of the municipalities — and they just don’t have the tax base to address the issue.
“So, when people say infrastructure is a problem you can look at them and say, ‘Yeah, you’re right!'”
In Montreal — where 35 per cent of respondents identified infrastructure as the most pressing local issue — Mayor Gerald Tremblay is trying to reassure nervous residents, but he has his work cut out for him.
A giant slab of concrete fell on an expressway in the city just a few months ago.
“The problem is just going to get worse,” said Bricker.
In Winnipeg, infrastructure, the economy and just about everything else has taken a back seat to crime.
Half the respondents in that city cited crime as their top local concern — a whopping 42 per cent higher than the national average.
Local resident Harry Schwartz, 49, isn’t surprised that Winnipeg residents see crime as a more pressing issue than other issues such infrastructure.
“I feel that the residents have become accustomed to the current level of mediocre infrastructure that the city has ‘maintained’ over the years. They see a number of major construction projects and feel satisfied that the city is growing,” he told GlobalNews.ca.
“What draws headlines are the numerous repeat offenders who pop up on the news after stealing yet another car, assaults and shootings in the city’s core area, and fatal shootings and stabbings.
“Now that some of these more violent crimes have migrated into more affluent neighbourhoods, people are more concerned.”
Christopher Adams, vice president of Probe Research and an adjunct professor as the University of Winnipeg, acknowledges that crime is a problem in the city, and points to a biker gang war that has erupted in the past year.
However, he feels the media is fanning the flames of anxiety over crime.
“The media tends to over-report on crime issues, and this furthers the perception that crime should be the number one concern,” he told GlobalNews.ca.
“Along with that, this issue it is an important part of each party’s platform.”
But the news isn’t all bad, says Adams. “I don’t have figures on this, but there is an issue about people not wanting to go downtown at night,” he said.
“This is starting to change with the [NHL’s Winnipeg] Jets now being downtown … The economy is having a good effect in this regard.”
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These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted between August 26 to September 1, 2011 on behalf of Global Television. For this survey, a sample of 6,883 Canadians from Ipsos’ Canadian online panel.
A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of:
+/-4.8 percentage points for each individual city/region, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had the entire population of that particular city or region been polled;
+/-1.2 percentage points for the national Canadian population, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had the entire population of adults living in Canada been polled.
