Updated Survey: What do Canadians think and what do they want regarding the mandates, etc?

February 20, 2022.  We have heard from the Prime Minister, Members of Parliament, Premiers, as well as the truckers and their supporters/deniers about the mandates and the trucker convoy.

“What do Canadians think about what is happening in Ottawa and across the country and what do Canadians want?”  These are important questions and it is time to give Canadians a chance to provide feedback to our government.

On February 16, 2022, I designed a survey and distributed it online via a link. The survey consisted of eight multiple choice questions and two open-ended questions.  The survey is anonymous and the deadline for completion was midnight, February 20, 2022.

Within 24 hours we had a few hundred responses and I was hoping we would reach a 1000 within four days.  However, the survey went viral.  We have had well over 80,000 responses that produced thousands of pages of comments with the two open-ended questions.

I provided a preliminary summary of the survey results to various government officials via email. I have no idea if those emails ever reached the intended person.  The two open-ended questions remain to be analyzed, as this will take a bit longer. The word “hope” is used a lot regarding the truckers’ convoy and the words “lost jobs” & “lost friendships” are used a lot regarding the mandates.

Mistakes have been made and we have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes so they are not repeated.  My advice to the government, based on the survey results, is remove the mandates as soon as possible (now) and let Canadians decide for themselves what risks they want to take regarding their health.

The reason I designed this survey was to find out what Canadians think.  I have friends on multiple sides of this issues.  What they think depends largely on where they get their information.  Legacy media provides one version and those on the streets in Ottawa provide a different version.  If you are exposed only to one side of this issue you will not see the picture clearly.  If you follow different narratives you will be confused as they seem to be diametrically opposed.  What do you believe, the media or your own eyes and ears?

Do you listen only to comments you agree with or try to get alternative views?  That choice is yours.  Decisions you make about your health are also your choice or, at least, they were before mandates came along.

The value of a free, democratic society is that we can benefit from the diversity that makes up Canada, and that means diversity of thought as well.  However, we seem to have become intolerant of divergent views.  That’s not the Canada I have come to love.  Diversity leads to stability in nature and it can have the same effect in society if we recognize the value of diversity in all walks of life.

The preliminary results from this survey were sent to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Governor-General, Members of Parliament, Senators and Premiers. Once again, I have no idea if those emails ever reached their intended audience.  I am asking them to listen to Canadians and to do what they know is right.

In total, 93,135 people responded to the survey. Those results minus the analysis of the open-ended questions are available here.

The responses to Questions 9 and 10 (Open-ended Questions) is available here.  I am still trying to get a software program that will assess such a large data set for qualitative data.

Please share this information.


Update:  February 23, 2022.

I sent the survey to all Senators one day prior to their vote.  Normally, when you contact someone in government you receive an automatic reply that your email was received.  I did not receive that automatic response and thought that the email didn’t get through to the Senators.  I was right.  Today (Feb 23/22), I received this notice from my email postmaster:

Your message wasn’t delivered. Despite repeated attempts to deliver your message, the recipient’s email system refused to accept a connection from your email system.

Contact the recipient by some other means (by phone, for example) and ask them to tell their email admin that it appears that their email system is refusing connections from your email server. Give them the error details shown below. It’s likely that the recipient’s email admin is the only one who can fix this problem.

For Email Admins
No connection could be made because the target computer actively refused it. This usually results from trying to connect to a service that is inactive on the remote host – that is, one with no server application running. For more information and tips to fix this issue see this article:
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=389361

If this was not a technical glitch then it is unethical in a free and democratic society to  interfere with correspondence between a citizen and their Senators. I don’t know if it is legal.  I share this incase it has also happened to you.