The Seduction of Surveys in Canada's Federal Elections

About the Book

In a national election Canadians are drowned in survey data. There is a constant torrent of "horserace" news stories on parties and candidates based on incessant surveys.

Is the Canadian citizen supposed to treat all polls as equivalent and accept the findings and the news media interpretations? This book is written to develop a more critical view of polls or surveys used during a federal election campaign.

It deals with problems inherent in surveys and examines polls in the elections of 2004 and 2006,the Canadian Elections Act, random sampling, the margin of error and how to evaluate future polls.

About the Author

This is Terry Julian's ninth published non-fiction book. He lives in New Westminster with his wife, Ruth. They have three children. His son, Patrick, is a lawyer in Vancouver, daughter Randi is a crown prosecutor in Port Coquitlam and son Peter is a twice elected member of Parliament for Burnaby-New Westminster.

In 2002 Terry was a recipient of the Queen's Jubilee Medal. For the past fifteen years he has participated in the 10K Vancouver Sun Run.