Ottawa

BTC: Pollism

From a Canwest story headlined, “Entering Week 3 amid growing voter apathy.”

But the fight over protecting urban streets, or the promises of a new dawn in the Arctic, seemed to be doing little to attract the imaginations of voters.

A new Ipsos Reid poll for Canwest News Service and Global News suggested only one in five Canadians are paying more attention to this election than past campaigns. About two-thirds said they were giving the election the same amount of attention as others, while 14 per cent say they’re paying less attention.

“Quite clearly, the campaign hasn’t really heated up yet. Most people aren’t really paying that much attention to it,” said Darrell Bricker, president and CEO of Ipsos Reid.

Look at those numbers again.

One-fifth are paying more attention. Two-thirds are paying the same amount of attention. Fourteen percent are paying less attention.

So 20% are paying more. About 66% are paying the same. And 14% are paying less.

If the percentage paying more attention is higher than the percentage paying less, doesn’t that mean that, generally speaking, the public is paying more attention than usual? And, if so, how does that qualify as apathy?

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