SURVEYS LIE
Ag Canada accused of using biased surveys against farmers?

By Patrick Meagher

KEMPTVILLE — Agriculture Canada has come under fire for unfair survey practices and has been charged with abandoning farmers.

An Agriculture Canada director stood up at a meeting in Kemptville this month and announced the result of a survey that critics say manipulates public opinion. But that’s just one of many surveys designed without an interest in truth and that increasing show that Agriculture Canada does not serve the farmer, says a former Agriculture Canada officer.

Karen Switzer-Howse, a commercialization officer for the research branch until 1998, says surveys appear increasingly written to get a pre-conceived answer to suit a plethora of interest groups.

By chance last year, in an telephone interview with an Agriculture Canada, she said she was asked questions in the form of "When did you last beat your wife?" and wonders if the federal government is looking for ammunition to dump environmental costs onto the farmer. "The survey was designed to get certain results," she said. While working with Ag Canada she said a federal government statistician told her that he can design a survey to get any result she wants, she said.

The latest charge arose from an Eckos survey presented by Terry McRae, associate director with the environment bureau of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He told a land conservation meeting Feb. 8 at Kemptville College that 81 per cent of Canadians polled agree that farmers need more knowledge to ensure their farming practices are environmentally responsible. The response to the survey of 700 people last year was prefaced with "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?"

"Whether or not you agree with it, public perception has to be taken into account," McRae told the meeting. When questioned by Farmers Forum later, McRae agreed that the statistic he used is not that useful, as just about everyone agrees they could use more knowledge in their field. But "it has some relevance," McRae said in a follow-up telephone call. "It’s getting a sense of where the public mind is at."

The survey has no relevance, Switzer-Howe responded. "I object to it. It’s formed to get a specific answer."

Ag Canada now serves the consumer and not the farmer, says Bob Woolham, a cow-calf operator, south of Kemptville, and former federal trade commissioner and agriculture attache in Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong.

Historically, the federal agriculture department was designed to provide research and services to farming. But Woolham, who retired from the federal government in 1989, has seen Ag Canada interests shift. Surveys reflect the new agenda, he said.

"Ag Canada, like OMAFRA, has a political connection these days. I don’t think they’re interested in farming and the individual farmer," he said. "They’re interested in bigger sectors that vote."

He sees Ag Canada run by bureaucracy and following consumer interests and big industry, regardless of facts, while listening to "so many well-organized interest groups that really know how to pluck the banjo."

He sees most surveys as politically motivated and points to two polls, both done by Pollara, to illustrate his point. A poll commissioned by Ottawa found that 90 per cent of Canadians said they had never heard of the government’s species at risk act. The federal government concluded legislation wasn’t important and dropped it.

The Sierra Legal Defence Fund commissioned its own poll and found 90 per cent of Canadians support a law to protect endangered species. Naturally, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund concluded a species at risk act was necessary.