Canadian Pollster Pushes Disinformation About Disinformation
Episode Stats
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197.34486
Summary
In this episode, I talk about a new poll that has the Tories leading in the polls by a lot, and why I'm starting to remember why I don't like ECOS polling very much. I also talk about the dangers of disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Transcript
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I'm starting to remember why I don't like ECOS polling very much. Even though a lot of the new
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polls are showing the Conservative Party way ahead of the Liberals, I don't really care about the
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Conservatives being ahead in the polls. I just want high quality polls. So a lot of their new
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polls are showing the Conservatives up either 19 or 20 points on the Liberals. The one that they
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released last night shows them up 19 points on the Liberals, 42% for the Conservatives to
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only 23% for the Liberals and the NDP just holding out what they had in 2021. That's interesting,
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I guess. But I don't actually believe that that's actually where the Conservative Party is at right
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now. I think they're probably more like that typical 8 to 14% lead that we've seen in other
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polls. 19 and 20 seems a little hyperbolic these days. I know there's always someone in the comments
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saying the Liberals should be way lower. I can't believe they even have 23%. I understand the
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Liberals are awful. We have to realize there's a lot of people out there who do not pay attention
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and they just default to voting for what they voted since the 70s. It's just how it works in a lot of
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people. But the reason I do not trust this ECOS poll in particular, not just because I think their
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lead for the Conservatives seems a little bit outside of what most other polls are showing,
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but it's this little piece of disinformation that they seeded right in the middle of their poll.
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And so it's basically disinformation about disinformation. So Frank Graves, who runs ECOS
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polling, posted this on Twitter, showed that by voting intention, Conservatives are the most
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susceptible to disinformation. It's a completely ridiculous poll question. It says, if a federal
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election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for? And then he ranks the results by a level
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of disinformation. So of course, no disinformation. That's where the Liberals and the NDP do really
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well. And as soon as you get to the high of disinformation, the 7 to 12 points, it's 84% Conservatives
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and 11% PPC. Those are all of the people who believe in disinformation. And obviously, I think what this
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poll question is trying to do is even if they're showing the Conservatives ahead in the polls
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generally, it's a little bit of a gift for the media to be able to report on how, well, the
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Conservative Party, by the polling data, is the party of disinformation and misinformation.
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The pure poly is deeply dangerous and he's a conspiracy theorist. Look, his own voters believe
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in disinformation and conspiracy theories. It's completely ridiculous. And when you read the
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methodology behind this question, you realize it's a fabrication. It's trying to bait
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conservatives into saying things that the media can then label as disinformation, even though
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that's not really what disinformation means. Disinformation is like if the Russian government
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or the Chinese government was literally deliberately spreading things they knew to be lies in Canada.
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Misinformation is just something that's not quite right. But anyways, but here's the questions
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that Frank Graves had attached to it. So there was a point system where there was four questions
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asked. One of them was a true statement. Three of them were false statements. And people, whether
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they were saying that they, you know, they didn't believe it at all, they don't know or they like
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believe it, that's what was ranking them on their level of disinformation. And so the questions that
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were asked were Canada's economic growth lags behind the G7 average. So that's considered a piece
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of disinformation that Canada's economic growth lags behind the rest of the G7. Now, this is only
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technically false in the sense that Canada's GDP has been going up rather strongly year to year,
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but that's not taking into the account that our population is going up at a very rapid rate and
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it's outpacing the level of GDP growth we have, which is why we have Canadians like losing money
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over time, that our per capita GDP is actually falling over time. We're not exactly a super
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economically healthy country. Yet Frank Graves in this poll shows that if a conservative said that
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we're lagging behind, that's disinformation. That's complete nonsense that that would be
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considered disinformation. If anything, this is a point up for debate. Now, the second one is
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vaccine-related deaths are being concealed from the public. Now, I think everyone who's watched my show
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or any of the podcasts or read many of my articles over time knows that I'm not the type of person
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to get on a Twitter space and start claiming that I know 75,000 people who have died from vaccines.
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That's not the type of person I am. I tend to assume that the truth is far more boring than people
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think. Have there been people who probably died from the COVID-19 vaccine? Probably. Almost any piece
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of medication, if you'd make anyone take it, every single person take it, would result in some deaths.
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And so while I understand that there's probably people out there who are like, every death over the past
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10 years has been vaccine-related, and that's utter nonsense, the average person just saying,
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yeah, I think there's probably like a couple hundred people who might have died from the vaccine
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that the government doesn't really want to admit to, that's not really disinformation or misinformation.
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That's just someone logically concluding that some people must have died, and we've noticed that
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the government seems very edgy to admit that anyone's even had a vaccine-related side effect.
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Again, this is not misinformation. This is just Frank Gray's trying to set up conservatives by
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asking them questions that will seem like, if they answer it the wrong way, that they're a crazy
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kook who thinks, you know, like a million, 10 million people died in Canada because of the COVID-19
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vaccine. Anyways, the third one is, the right to bear arms is guaranteed in Canada's constitution.
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So this one, I understand that that's not correct. In Canada's charter and constitution, there is no
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guarantee of the right to, like, to bear arms in the way it is in the U.S.'s constitution.
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At the same time, I understand why people would say yes to this, that yes, we have the right to
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bear arms in Canada, because while that text does not show up in the charter, I think a lot of
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conservatives would be answering in the affirmative for that question, not because they actually believe
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that it's there, it's because they think that this poll is effectively trying to trick them into
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saying that there is no ability to hold weapons in Canada. And ergo, Justin Trudeau, restricting the
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ability for legally, for law-abiding gun owners to keep their guns is right, that somehow Justin
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Trudeau is in the right for doing this. That's why people are probably answering yes for that, is that
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they know that you have a right to defend yourself in Canada, and that obviously, that should lead to
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some level of ability to keep and bear arms. So that's not disinformation or misinformation,
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that's just a vague enough question or a question where conservatives feel set up. So they're going
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to answer it in a particular way, so that the pollster does not, you know, spin that result as,
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you know, Canadians think that it's totally cool for nobody to be able to own firearms.
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Anyways, the last one, and this one is the true statement, and it said, climate change is caused by
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greenhouse gas emissions. Well, I said that's the true statement, but that's the one that Frank Graves
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labels is the true statement. Does greenhouse gas emissions have anything to do with the climate
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and with the warmth of the air on the planet Earth? Sure, somewhat, yes. Do other things have,
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do other things have, like, impacts on the climate? Obviously. But the problem is that this poll question
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is basically saying, is greenhouse gas emissions the only thing that Canada should be worrying about?
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And ergo, if you say, yes, climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, with no other nuance
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as to the other effects of climate change or the other causes of climate change, that you're
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effectively endorsing a carbon tax. That's why you're going to have a lot of conservatives just
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outright reject this, even if they might agree with it in a technical sense that, yes, greenhouse gas
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emissions can contribute to climate change. If you fill a room with carbon dioxide, obviously that is
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going to be a warmer room than one that just has, you know, the standard mix of oxygen, nitrogen,
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and a little bit of carbon. That's obvious. Everyone understands that it's more so that people
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disagree with the scale that carbon emissions have to do with climate change, which is why before the
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industrial revolution, you would have major changes in climate, in the climate over time. Whereas these
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days, we are having sort of the same looking changes in climate, yet the factor that's changed over the
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past 150 years is that carbon has significantly gone up in the atmosphere. It's still not that
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carbon is still a small portion of the atmosphere, but it's changed. So maybe it has some impact. Maybe
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it's contributing these days. But before humans were burning massive amounts of carbon, we obviously
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still had changes in climate. That's what most conservatives are taking issue with, is when you
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just do the blanket statement as if that's the only thing that's ever changed the climate in the history
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of the planet. Anyways, but the thing that I find is so disgusting about this poll question is imagine
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the questions that you could ask liberals, NDP voters, and especially Green Party voters, in order
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to set them up and show that they believe in disinformation. Ask liberals, do you think the
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parental rights movement is an extreme? Do you think parental rights is being used to abuse LGBTQ
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children? You would have a lot of liberals say, absolutely, parental rights is a front for abusing
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children. It's complete nonsense. It's verifiably false that any group who stands up for parental
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rights is somehow pro-abuse. But that's some narrative that the Liberal Party has, you know,
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taken in. Have a question where you ask all the left-leaning party voters, define what a Nazi is.
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I doubt they could do it because we've just seen that our Prime Minister does not know what a Nazi is,
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and they're willing to invite a literal member of the Waffen-SS to Parliament because they don't
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understand what fighting against the Russians in World War II means. Regardless, but you can ask
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questions to Green Party and NDP voters about Israel. They'll probably believe in a lot of
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anti-Israel conspiracy theories. You'll see a lot of liberals believing that somehow the oil and gas
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industry is more heavily subsidized than the green energy industry. Yes, in raw dollars, technically,
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the oil and gas industry gets more government support. But in percentage of the actual income
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of oil and gas industries compared to EV and green energy companies, obviously, green energy companies
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would die if they didn't get their subsidies, because that makes up a massive part of their own
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budget, where any little bits and pieces of handouts that oil and gas companies get, which I don't
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support. I don't think that oil and gas companies need it, especially if we actually have a fairer
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regulator who doesn't hurt them in other ways and overtax them. It's obvious that if the oil and gas
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industries had, like the industry had their subsidies taken away, they would still survive.
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EVs would not. And liberals, although, would assume that it's actually the oil and gas industry that's
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more heavily propped up. And they would probably believe that green energy is like the future and
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that it's a booming industry, not knowing that the vast majority of the industry is just government
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money at this point. The car companies who sell EVs lose money on every EV they sell. It's not an
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efficient product for these companies to be selling. They cost a lot. People who buy them don't want to
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have to buy the charging stations. And if they do, it's like $9,000 a charging station. They do not have
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very good range. There's like stories all over the place of people buying electric trucks and trying
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to drive across the US and eventually abandoning them because they couldn't get very far. This is not.
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But again, if you ask liberals questions around these topics, they would be considered
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proponents of disinformation. But Frank Graves and ECOS obviously only touched on topics that they
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could maybe smear conservatives with, because that's kind of the way that they can sort of still
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bail the liberals out. The media, instead of reporting on the massive poll lead, or even if
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they do report on the massive poll lead, they can take a sidestep over and say, well, but this poll
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also shows that conservatives believe in a lot of information, don't you know? I've even shown that
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these questions, even based on these very slanted questions, if you said that if you agreed with the
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false statements, the quote-unquote false statements, you would still be partially right.
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And even with a lot of these, even in the worst case scenario for some of these questions,
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it's just really up for debate. Even if one side probably has more credibility than the other,
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you want to pick a question that is clearly disinformation if you say one answer over the other.
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This is not that case. But Frank Graves thinks that if you think that like there's been no,
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if you think, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble talking towards the end of this video, everyone
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forgive me. But Frank Graves thinks that if you think there's one person who died of a vaccine
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injury in Canada, that you're a conspiracy theorist and a disinformation artist. And that
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demonstrates to me why I do not care what ECOS says. It doesn't matter how high they put the
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conservatives in the polls. I want accurate polls. I don't want propaganda polls.
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I don't want pro-conservative or liberal or NDP propaganda polls. And even though this one shows
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the conservatives ahead, this disinformation question is pure disinformation itself. And I
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don't want to engage in this crap. Anyways, before I end this video, I just want to quickly
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make a shout out to Brian Breguet, who for some reason was suspended on Twitter, which is now called
00:12:44.640
X for no reason. He's one of the best polling analysts in Canada, right next to the great Canadian
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bagel Chris over at the great Canadian bagel podcast. But Brian Breguet over at his website,
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too close to call is a fantastic polling analyst. And I wish he was on Twitter these days because I
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think he would have a field day going over this incredibly stupid ECOS poll that Frank Graves is
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trying to defend. But other than that, that should be it for me today. Donate to my legal fundraiser in
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00:13:16.220
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