The "Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife Yet" Survey

For years, Conservative MPs like Jason Kenney have been bombarding their constituencies with bogus "policy surveys" as part of their "community contact" programs.

Usually quarterly - at least in theory - constituents are sent a copy of something like this in the mail. (all at taxpayer expense, of course). {notably - I haven't seen one of these in quite some time - like since I last lambasted Kenney for being an utter twit on some topic or another. Apparently my street has been taken off the delivery routes that they send things to.

Usually these things are little more than button pushing exercises - for example, take a look at the "results" in Art Hanger's latest edition. (any sentient person should be able to see the garden path logic of the questions - which conveniently ignores dealing with any really complex issues).

I've always referred to these as the "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" surveys - mostly because if you answer them within the confines of the questions, there's a very limited subset of answers that make any sense - you can't answer in the negative to one and the positive to another subsequent question without introducing an inconsistency.

Well then, where do you suppose our good friends in the CPC come up with their ideas? (Knowing that none of them are capable of an original thought this side of creation) Sure enough - they are taking their cues from the GOP in the United States. Over here, we have copies of a survey sent out from the GOP to their registered voter list.

Of particular note are some of the questions on the survey:

Survey Pg 1

Survey Pg 2

Notice the vague wording, and deliberate "yes/no" answers on questions such as human cloning research. (a topic which few people actually understand, and most people only have the vaguest Aldous Huxley understanding)