Latest news with #publicopinion
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Majority of Albertans rejected provincial pension in 2023 survey
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to the Alberta government's pension engagement survey did not want to dump the Canada Pension Plan and switch to a plan run by the province. Numbers provided by the government showed 63 per cent of people who responded to the survey were opposed to an Alberta pension, 10 per cent were in favour and 12 per cent were undecided or unsure. The remaining 15 per cent was made up of people whose responses were incomplete, or contained questions or suggestions for "other alternatives." The survey results were released to the Edmonton Journal this week after a 21-month battle. The newspaper reported that it asked the province for the responses on multiple occasions only to be met with refusal or documents full of redactions. The data was finally posted to the government's open data site this week after the privacy and information commissioner became involved. In its response, the government cited two 2025 polls which suggested public opinion was shifting in favour of a provincial pension plan "While recent surveys on an APP show public opinion may be shifting, we will continue to engage with Albertans on this topic through the Alberta Next panel," Marisa Breeze, press secretary to finance minister Nate Horner, wrote. "The Alberta Pension Protection Act guarantees we won't replace the CPP with an Alberta Pension Plan unless Albertans approve it in a referendum." Responses in the document called the idea "reckless" and the survey "a farce." "I do not support this idea. I will move out of Alberta if this happens," one respondent said. "I am Canadian first and fully support the Canada Pension Plan. "Withdrawal from the CPP would be a horrendous miscalculation that will impact our province for generations to come," said another. WATCH | Why Alberta says it's entitled to half of the Canada Pension Plan: One respondent characterized the government's pension ambitions as "political posturing." "Stop playing games with my retirement to spite the rest of the country," another wrote. Supporters of a provincial pension said they wanted Alberta to be independent from Ottawa. "Alberta has paid dearly since Confederation," one respondent wrote. "We deserve independence financially." Edmonton-Decore MLA Sharif Haji, the NDP opposition critic for affordability and utilities, said the results prove that Albertans do not want a provincial pension. He criticized the government for trying to hide the survey answers. "It took close to two years," Haji said. "What it tells me is that they never wanted to share because the result was not the one that they wanted." Haji said an Alberta pension plan is part of Premier Danielle Smith's separation agenda, which includes the push for an Alberta provincial police service. In 2023, the province released a report from an independent third party called Lifeworks, that claimed Alberta would be entitled to 53 per cent or $344 billion of the CPP if it withdrew from the national plan in 2027. But Canada's chief actuary determined late last year that the amount was between 20 and 25 per cent of the $575 billion plan. Smith has said Albertans would have to approve an exit from the CPP via a referendum before her government made any move. An engagement panel led by former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning held town halls on the pension issue in the fall of 2023.
CBC
20 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Majority of Albertans rejected provincial pension in 2023 survey
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to the Alberta government's pension engagement survey did not want to dump the Canada Pension Plan and switch to a plan run by the province. Numbers provided by the government showed 63 per cent of people who responded to the 2023 were opposed to an Alberta pension, 10 per cent were in favour and 12 per cent were undecided or unsure. The remaining 15 per cent was made up of people whose responses were incomplete, or contained questions or suggestions for "other alternatives." The survey results were released to the Edmonton Journal this week after a 21-month battle. The newspaper reported that it asked the province for the responses on multiple occasions only to be met with refusal or documents full of redactions. The data was finally posted to the government's open data site this week after the privacy and information commissioner became involved. In its response, the government cited two 2025 polls which suggested public opinion was shifting in favour of a provincial pension plan. "While recent surveys on an APP show public opinion may be shifting, we will continue to engage with Albertans on this topic through the Alberta Next panel," Marisa Breeze, press secretary to finance minister Nate Horner, wrote. "The Alberta Pension Protection Act guarantees we won't replace the CPP with an Alberta Pension Plan unless Albertans approve it in a referendum." Responses in the document called the idea "reckless" and the survey "a farce." "I do not support this idea. I will move out of Alberta if this happens," one respondent said. "I am Canadian first and fully support the Canada Pension Plan. "Withdrawal from the CPP would be a horrendous miscalculation that will impact our province for generations to come," said another. WATCH | Why Alberta says it's entitled to half of the Canada Pension Plan: Why Alberta says it's entitled to half of Canada's Pension Plan | About That 2 years ago Duration 12:14 The Alberta government wants out of the Canada Pension Plan — and the province wants to take more than half of the pot with it. Andrew Chang breaks down how Alberta arrived at its $334 billion take-home figure — and why some experts say the province needs to double check its math. One respondent characterized the government's pension ambitions as "political posturing." "Stop playing games with my retirement to spite the rest of the country. Supporters of a provincial pension said they wanted Alberta to be independent from Ottawa. "Alberta has paid dearly since Confederation," one respondent wrote. "We deserve independence financially." Edmonton-Decore MLA Sharif Haji, the NDP opposition critic for affordability and utilities, said the results prove that Albertans do not want a provincial pension. He criticized the government for trying to hide the survey answers. "It took close to two years," Haji said. "What it tells me is that they never wanted to share because the result was not the one that they wanted." Haji said an Alberta pension plan is part of Premier Danielle Smith's separation agenda, which includes the push for an Alberta provincial police service. In 2023, the province released a report from an independent third party called Lifeworks, that claimed Alberta would be entitled to 53 per cent or $344 billion of the CPP if it withdrew from the national plan in 2027. But Canada's chief actuary determined late last year that the amount was between 20 and 25 per cent of the $575 billion plan. Smith has said Albertans would have to approve an exit from the CPP via an referendum before her government made any move. An engagement panel led by former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning held town halls on the pension issue in the fall of 2023.
CTV News
a day ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Morning Rush: Canadians support reducing mail delivery
Ottawa Watch Bill Carroll from the Morning Rush share his thoughts on 72% of Canadians support reducing mail delivery to three days a week.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Junk Science Week — Terence Corcoran: When science turns political, trust declines
For many years now, popular trust in science has been in decline. That conclusion may not pass a rigid science review since most of the evidence comes from polling, which — according to Google's AI review — lacks scientific rigidity. When asked whether polling is a science, Google AI responded with what looks like a consensus view: 'It is both a science and an art.' The science involves using 'statistical methods, sampling techniques and social science principles to design and conduct polls that accurately reflect public opinion.' Then comes a big cloud of doubt: 'However, the interpretation and application of polling data, as well as the specific strategies used by pollsters, can involve a degree of artistry and political judgment.' Some say polling is 'more an art than a science.' The following is not intended as a put-down of polling, which has its valid processes and uses. The summary definition of polling, however, does somewhat correspond to FP Comment's standard definition of junk science. Junk science occurs when scientific facts are distorted, risk is exaggerated (or underplayed) and 'the science' adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda. That definition encompasses a wide range of activities among scientists, NGOs, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who manipulate science for political, environmental, economic and social purposes. We can now add Artificial Intelligence to the list. The large proportion of science that flows through to the populations of Canada and all countries can, unfortunately, fall into our definition. The array of ideological forces using science to generate public support for social and political causes — or to defeat the same causes — is sowing increasing confusion and distrust. In recent years, poll after poll after poll has produced evidence that public confidence in science has been declining. Back in 2020, University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield noted that fomenting distrust 'has become the go-to strategy for selling health products, generating clicks and getting elected.' The doubts grew as the COVID-19 pandemic raged and as Donald Trump and others on both sides of the political fence engaged in pitched battles over vaccines. The pandemic is said to be a major factor behind the decline of trust in science, especially in the United States where vaccine polarization accelerated with Trump's appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. as America's Secretary of Health, which fuelled more doubt (or so the polls showed), especially on the religious right. Opinions may be shifting, however. Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' report released last month has been roundly trashed across the political spectrum for its lack of science and false scientific statements. The Genetic Literacy Project called the report a 'full-scale assault on science.' In a new paper — The Strange New Politics of Science — two researchers at the American Enterprise Institute argue that while 76 per cent of Americans still trust science, the number is 11 points below pre-pandemic levels. The authors rightly argue that 'the stark polarization of American politics around trust in science not only threatens the legitimacy of particular expert institutions, but also has potentially destabilizing consequences for society as a whole.' A 2024 University of Waterloo survey report, Trust in Canada, suggested Canadians still hold science in high regard. Despite the pandemic episodes, 'scientists (along with doctors and researchers) remain one of the most trusted groups in Canada.' In one pre-pandemic poll, 90 per cent of respondents said they 'trusted' and 'trusted very much' science-related sources. They were followed by science-based personalities (76 per cent), journalists (56 per cent), government (46 per cent), comedians (31 per cent), religious leaders (25 per cent), bloggers and influencers (19 per cent), and celebrities (10 per cent). At least journalists ranked higher than comedians. A 2023 Confidence in Leaders survey from Environics found that even during the pandemic, 75 per cent of surveyed citizens still had 'a lot or some confidence' in science, far behind NGOs (52), journalists (50), business leaders (42) and politicians (33). Such polling results highlight the indisputable fact that trust in science may have weakened to some degree in recent years, but the cause may be more a function of other messengers and institutions rather than scientists. Which takes us to the heart of junk science. The junk is not necessarily in the science, but in the various ideological streams through which the science flows. Make no mistake, scientists can have political and ideological agendas, but in open debate the junk can be filtered out. Through this week's 27th annual Junk Science Week, various science issues are explored, beginning with Peter Shawn Taylor's exploration of the questionable science behind the annual bee apocalypse. While a Google AI search question (Are bee populations declining?) will produce various versions of yes, the actual answer is no. Which is not surprising. A recent headline on a science blog said: 'Flood of 'junk': How AI is changing scientific publishing.' Another claimed that 'AI-fabricated 'junk science' floods Google scholar.' And then there is this story from Nature magazine that merged AI with the artful science of polling: 'Is it OK for AI to write science papers? Nature survey shows researchers are split. The poll of 5,000 researchers finds contrasting views on when it's acceptable to involve AI and what needs to be disclosed.' Terence Corcoran: A 'guide' to the Trump-Canada steel tariff war Terence Corcoran: Trump bites U.S. economy to get at Apple Contrasting views in science! Situation normal. • Email: tcorcoran@
New York Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Charisma Rules the World
The 2020s should have been the decade when American politics began to make sense. The multibillion-dollar industry of public opinion polling can turn vibe shifts into tweetable bar graphs and trend lines. Surveys have found that affiliation with traditional religious institutions has mostly declined over the past generation, so one might conclude that more Americans now form their worldviews and choose leaders based on cool logic and material interest. And over this data-driven landscape extends the lengthening shadow of our artificial intelligence overlords, who promise to rationalize more and more of our lives, for our own good. Yet somehow, despite the experts' interactive graphics and the tricks that large language models can do, it has only gotten harder to understand the worldviews and political choices of half the country (whichever half you don't belong to). Perhaps, then, we should pay more attention to the human quirks that confound statisticians and that A.I. can't quite crack — desires and drives that have not changed much over the centuries. That means rescuing a familiar word from decades of confusion and cliché: charisma. In New Testament Greek, the word means gift of grace or supernatural power. But when we use it to describe the appeal of a politician, a preacher's hold over his congregation or a YouTube guru with a surprisingly large following, we are taking a cue from the sociologist Max Weber. He spent much of his career studying what happens to spiritual impulses as a society becomes more secular and bureaucratic. A little more than a century ago, he borrowed 'charisma' from the Bible and Christian history to describe the relationship between leaders and followers in both religion and politics. Charisma, he wrote, is a form of authority that does not depend on institutional office, military might or claims on tradition. Instead, charisma derives from followers' belief that their leader possesses a supernatural mission and power: 'a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men.' Weber described himself as 'religiously unmusical' and insisted that he was reinventing charisma in a 'completely value-neutral sense.' But the magnetism that he observed in some leaders — and their followers' sense of calling and duty — seemed to demand a spiritual description. The secular vocabulary developing in his corner of academia, the new disciplines of the social sciences, was not up to the task. 'In order to do justice to their mission, the holders of charisma, the master as well as his disciples and followers, must stand outside the ties of this world,' he wrote. Even as he resisted his colleagues' tendencies to reduce human behavior to animal instincts and reflexes, Weber missed a key element. Charisma is not something that leaders have; it's something that they do. Charisma is a kind of storytelling. It's an ability to invite followers into a transcendent narrative about what their lives mean. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
