I am surprised at the results given that Ross Crockford exposed (in Focus) an organized effort to seed the survey to support MM.
Only a passionate few know the City of Victoria is about to approve three-storey condos everywhere.
But as it’s now becoming apparent, the trouble with such limited engagement is it gives little indication of what the general public knows or thinks about a subject. “Real surveys have random samples of populations, and a range of questions which should be neutral, to create a projectable sample. They have to look like the whole population. That is clearly what is not going on here,” says Ian McKinnon, a former president of Decima Research who’s also served in central agencies of federal and BC governments.
Instead, consultations that are open to anyone frequently get dominated by small groups that feel passionately about an issue. “My concern is often: How are people informed about it, and who responds?” McKinnon asks. “With almost all public consultations, those who are strongly motivated often use their networks to encourage participation by people who they know to have the same viewpoint as themselves.”
Online consultations can also get skewed by people giving multiple responses, McKinnon notes, or chiming in from other jurisdictions. (It happens: one eagle-eyed member of the Downtown Residents’ Association noted that during the runup to Council’s approval of the controversial Telus Ocean, 81 of 140 letters of support came from people associated with the project, including Telus employees from other parts of Canada.) On Homes For Living’s forum, members and developers regularly urge each other to respond positively to surveys, consultations and hearings on projects across Greater Victoria, with little concern whether they live in the municipality or not. Is that appropriate? “I never know myself,” Phil MacKellar, an HFL spokeperson tells me; he lives in Fernwood, but recently filled out a survey to support infill housing in Oak Bay. “Because Victoria’s never amalgamated, it feels like I’m part of multiple cities. A lot of people who live in Saanich but work in Victoria, or vice-versa, feel the same way.”
Andrew says some respondents have tried to skew his survey by using false names and email addresses, but they will be “filtered out” by administrators. The City’s Have Your Say platform only requires participants to provide an email address and a postal code; I was able to register different addresses and take the same survey several times. Given Missing Middle’s huge stakes, I asked the City if it was worried about its surveys being gamed. The City replied in a statement that it uses “industry standard engagement tools for local government,” and that “all online engagement is based on good faith.” (Although some platforms, such as Vancouver-based PlaceSpeak, go farther to prevent fraud by verifying every respondent’s physical address.) “Public engagement during policy development is important,” the City concluded, “but the real test of public position on the final bylaw is a public hearing.”
https://www.focusonv...a/reporting/61/
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 July 2022 - 07:52 AM.
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