The political use of poll results about public support for a privatized healthcare system in Canada

ObjectivesWithin the context of the political debate on privatization of healthcare funding in Canada, this paper examines the nature and the various role of polls.MethodsTo reach this objective we rely on available commercial polls and statistical surveys and qualitatively analyse them to illustrate methodological and logical problems as well as to distinguish between what we call the ‘informative’ and the ‘political’ use of poll results.ResultsWe first draw a portrait of Quebecers’ and Canadians’ positions on the healthcare system and use this portrait to highlight a certain number of logical and methodological issues related to the political use of polls. Our analysis shows that public support for privatization of the healthcare system, as presented in the polls, is a construct whose logical underpinnings and methodological validity are extremely weak.ConclusionsWe then discuss those results to argue that polls are not only used to represent the public's preferences but are also political tools used to shape those preferences.