I know this is just a CBC poll designed to drive readership to their website, but have a go if you feel like seeing how yours compares to mine.

I’m not sure how realistic the results are though. After all, there are questions pertaining to social conservatism that, no matter how you answer them, are not represented by any of the political parties. Further, the economic questions are not represented by the parties either. Cutting spending and government jobs? Nobody is offering that.

Missing from the CBC poll is a question about selling the CBC.

Photo: The Associated Press

According to a poll conducted by Léger Marketing in Canada and Caravan in the United States, and released exclusively to Postmedia News, the large majority of Canadians don’t believe that Muslims share our values. 55 per cent of Canadian respondents, and 50.3 per cent of American respondents, disagreed with the statement “Muslims share our values.”

Those numbers change significantly based upon where the questions were asked. In Quebec, where the debate of “reasonable accommodation” has been brought to the forefront by cultural conflicts with Muslims wanting to wear the full niqab, fully 72 per cent said Muslims do not share their values:

Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, which commissioned the poll along with the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, said the opinion Canadians held of Muslims had been deteriorating over the past few years.

“I think the principal thing that worries me when you see these results is the tendency to generalize,” he said.

“There is a tendency to see an incident arising with someone who is Muslim or a group of people who are Muslim are involved and there seems to be a ready tendency to generalize to the entire group.” Ayman Al Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, agreed the situation was getting worse and suggested Canada’s Muslim community reach out more to other Canadians.

I knew there would be someone who could explain to us how the majority is, in some technical way, incorrect about their own views. It is not Muslims who do not share Canadian values, but rather Canadians who generalize. It’s a perfect explanation for a poll that doesn’t seem to agree with the fairytale presented on CBC’s “Little Mosque on the Prairie.”

You mean there are greater barriers to cultural compatibility than Peter Sellers-like Pakistani accents and women wearing colourful hijabs? Uh, yeah.

Perhaps one of the more revealing aspects of integration failure is in the reactions from the Muslim community when given the opportunity to condemn terrorism.

When news hit that four Ottawa Muslims were accused of conspiring to commit terrorist atrocities in the capital city, a Montreal-based Islamic group’s first instinct was to reach out and shield the accused.

When Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf unleashed his brainchild for a 13-story mosque in a building partially destroyed by one of the jets crashing into the World Trade Center two blocks away, Muslims were quietly subdued. But when an irrelevant Pastor from Florida threatened to burn the Koran, it suddenly became a rallying point for the Muslim world to burn American flags and promise to rain death down upon the infidels.

As for our spineless, cowardly politicians across the entire political spectrum, none declined to prostrate themselves at the altar of the politically correct. As Rex Murphy wrote today in the National Post:

And what or who is more extraneous or ancillary, more truly irrelevant, than Pastor Jones? How could a genuine world issue, of cardinal depth and significance, be hostage to such a trivial player, to a pathetic and obvious publicity ploy by a man the world had never heard of?

Indeed. And yet what or who is more extraneous or ancillary to global peace and conciliation than some nobody cartoonist from Denmark? Yet he spawned riots the world over for doing nothing more than depicting the prophet Muhammad in a cartoon. When Kurt Westergaard was recently honoured with an award in Germany for those cartoons, the Muslim world again reacted with the kind of anger you would expect to be proportionate to a terrorist attack.

The solution to Muslim integration in Canada seems quite simple. When the followers of Muhammad ever get around to becoming as outraged over the acts of brutality perpetrated by fanatics of their religion, as they do over cartoons and threats to burn books, then you can expect Canadians to begin to believe that they share our “values.”

I don’t need to tell anybody that very little of substance can be extrapolated from polls, other than an inkling of how an election might go down if it were held at that moment. Unfortunately for that theory, the polls would likely be very different if an election were being held that very moment, since the campaign leading up to the election day would be filled with all sorts of reasons to change those results.

So while polls make for an interesting read over the morning coffee, they can’t be used to manufacture complex theories about momentum, political strategy, or the relative likelihood a party will win the next election. And yet there are columnists who do this. All the time.

Take Jane Taber’s latest blog entry in the Globe and Mail. She writes:

“Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are ready to take on Stephen Harper in a federal campaign as internal polling shows them up three percentage points from the last election and just six points behind the governing Conservatives.”

They are “ready” to take on the Conservatives? According to polls, they’ve been ready all summer long. In fact, Angus Reid showed just a four-point lead for the Conservatives back on August 11.

It was only back in April that Jane Taber was crowing about the ‘Guergisized’ Tories falling into a “statistical tie” with the Liberals [that would be the margin of error]. The actual lead was 31.4 per cent support for the Conservatives and 29 per cent for the Liberals, which means that way back in April the Liberals were far more “ready” to take on the Conservatives than they are now.

Stepping down from the headline somewhat, Ms.Taber writes that the data was presented to the Liberal caucus Tuesday afternoon by party pollster Michael Marzolini, indicating that during the next election the Liberals are expected to be much more competitive with the Tories. Which isn’t really saying anything we haven’t already known for the past half year now. Nor does it really say anything about what will happen in a future election either since, and bear with me here, the future resides in the as-yet unknown events to-be.

If anything, 6 per cent is a terrible polling number, given the fact that the Conservative Party has gone almost MIA during the summer, excepting Stephen Harper riding an ATV in the Arctic circle, while Michael Ignatieff has been doing his best impression of the second Olympic torch relay across Canada. Only that was a lot more interesting.

I can’t imagine how summer poll numbers would even be used as a gauge to how well political parties are performing in the country right now. If given the option between answering a poll about what political party you’d support in some election that hasn’t even been called yet, and getting in one last weekend fishing at the cottage, how quickly do you think you could hit the “end call” button?

Mr.Marzolini apparently said that there are many important issues that are “resonating” with Canadians, such as the long-form census.

Really? Resonating? Even rabid Liberal partisan Warren Kinsella offered a “I can’t see running a national campaign on the long form census” in an interview with The Mark News in July, before revealing even he refused to answer the census when it was delivered to his door.

I think what you’ll find after the end of summer, the resumption of Parliament, and the return of Canadians from the great outdoors, is that this polling data will become irrelevant, the summer issues that seemed so important will disappear like so many Aaron Wherry blog entries about torture in Afghanistan, and the Liberals will still not have written any policy. But don’t let that stop anybody from filling a few quotas between now and then.

But they still are usually among the first to provide real help when needed:

U.S. Army joins flood relief, rescue efforts in Pakistan

The U.S. Army joined efforts Thursday to rescue and provide assistance to some of the 4 million people affected by flooding that continues to cause massive devastation as it spreads across Pakistan.

U.S. helicopters — four Chinooks and two Blackhawks — helped evacuate 800 people who had been stranded in the northwest’s Swat Valley, and the choppers’ crews distributed 66,000 pounds of supplies, according to the U.S. Embassy here.

Although the relief missions are being coordinated with the Pakistani government, the presence of U.S. troops on the ground in Pakistan has the potential to cause controversy. U.S. motivations are widely mistrusted in Pakistan, and the addition of 84 U.S. service members could generate suspicion that U.S intentions go beyond providing humanitarian aid.

Still, on Thursday, the initial reaction was positive…

Just over a week ago:

Poll: Nearly 6 in 10 Pakistanis view US as enemy

Looks like this 2005 effort did not get much appreciation:

Earthquake Aid for Pakistan Might Help U.S. Image

Mark
Ottawa

This dangerous criminal will sell you a seed if you’re not careful!

Another famous member of the terrorist Khadr family is in the news today, this time because he’s being released from detention pending a court ruling that denied his extradition to the United States. Abdullah Khadr, second eldest child to Ahmed Said Khadr, was wanted by the U.S. government for procuring weapons on behalf of al-Qaeda.

But he is now free as a bird, after an Ontario court judge ordered his release from a Toronto detention centre. Abdullah had been in custody without bail since December 23, 2005. He was originally detained by Pakistani authorities before being arrested by the RCMP upon his return to Canada. The Americans paid a $500,000 U.S. bounty to the Pakistani police to hold him in custody before he returned here.

Superior Court Judge Christopher Speyer granted a stay of proceedings in the case, citing that Abdullah was not granted “prompt” access to Canadian consular services in Pakistan, and cited “gross misconduct” by the government of Canada.

Far be it from me to argue with a court decision, since Judge Speyer is certainly more qualified than I am to make decisions on such matters. But it does prompt the question: why do we protect terrorists and extradite potheads?

Marc Emery, the so-called “Prince of Pot”, was extradited to the United States in May to serve a five year sentence in a federal penitentiary. His heinous crime? Selling marijuana seeds by mail to U.S. customers.

One man procures weapons for al-Qaeda and the other sells a product that isn’t even an illegal substance until it’s grown. But the seed seller is the guy who gets the boot.

This coincides with a recent poll that suggests that Canadians don’t really have much of a problem with pot. A Leger Marketing poll for QMI Agency found that 21% think the federal government should decriminalize marijuana, and even 34% think it can be legalized and controlled.

Compare that to this poll, which suggests that most Canadians don’t really care much for the Khadr family, with 52% of respondents agreeing with the statement that they have “no sympathy” for Canada’s most famous “child soldier.”

Muslim activists integrating into British society by exercising their freedom of speech

A poll conducted for the Islamic Education and Research Academy [iERA] has found that 75% of non-Muslims in Britain believe that Islam has provided a negative contribution to society. Perhaps even more surprising, 63% of people did not disagree with the statement on the poll that “Muslims are terrorists”. 94% confirmed that “Islam oppresses women.” The poll also allowed for input: “If I had my way I’d kick them all [Muslims] out of here.”

Despite the widespread negative perceptions of Islam, iERA believes the fact that most opinions were formed in ignorance of the faith indicates that Muslims can positively influence them.

Four-fifths of those polled said they have less than very little knowledge about Islam, while 40% did not know who “Allah” referred to and 36% did not know who the Prophet Muhammad was.

iERA’s senior researcher Hamza Tzortzis said: “We wanted to do something positive with the survey results rather than just say, ‘It’s so sad’. So, the organisation’s strategy is to give a new realm of possibility for people to comprehend Islam, have a proper respect for Islam and see the human relevance of the faith.”

If at first you don’t get the results you want, blame ignorance, racism, and a lack of education.

The iERA said that they need to better promote their religion with information provided by female ambassadors. But Britons are having none of it.

Although the survey indicated people may not be willing to listen – 60% said they preferred not to receive any information about religion, while 77% did not agree in any way that Muslims should do more to teach people about their faith [...]

Perhaps the solution is to build more 13-story “Islamic cultural centres”?

A new Angus Reid public opinion poll shows that most Canadians are absolutely content with Canada’s most famous “child soldier” facing a military commission in Guantanamo Bay.

46% agreed that the proper decision is to let Omar face prosecution in Cuba, with the highest number of people feeling that way residing in Alberta [56%]. Meanwhile, 36% of Canadians believe that Canada should demand Omar’s repatriation and face whatever punishment the government sees fit to give him here. Only in Quebec, unsurprisingly, did more people want Omar returned than left in Cuba.

Those numbers are up significantly from February, when Canadians were divided equally by 40% each. In August of 2009 the number of Canadians who wanted Omar to stay in Cuba had a slight edge over the other side by 42% to 40%. A ten per cent divide is large enough to suggest that people are comfortable with the direction being taken by the Americans, even if 42% don’t think he’ll get a fair trial. Only Ontarians, Albertans, and Atlantic Canadians believe that Omar Khadr will get a fair trial in Cuba, while people in BC, the prairies, and Quebec, don’t think he will. The latter province was the most pessimistic a fair trial would take place.

Even so, the gap between those who are hopeful Omar will get a fair trial and those who don’t has shrunk since February, when 47% disagreed to 39% who agreed.

Ultimately what it may come down to is the fact that most Canadians just don’t care about the young terrorist. The survey showed that 37% feel “sympathy” for Omar’s plight, while 50% do not. This was true for every province, including Quebec, where 43% did not sympathize, although 41% did sympathize, the highest in the country.

Additionally, 49% to 26% agreed with the Supreme Court decision that acknowledged the federal government cannot be forced to repatriate Khadr.

What we see from this poll is perhaps a lot different from what sense we get about the Khadr conundrum in the media, with Canadians being comfortable he’s in Cuba facing military justice, and that they by and large do not sympathize with a plight of his own creation.

Even in the face of tough economic choices, Canadians don’t want to reduce military spending in order to control the deficit when the mission in Afghanistan wraps up. This, according to a poll by Innovative Research Group conducted for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

A majority of Canadians [57%] see the military as serving both a fighting and a humanitarian role for Canadian missions, while 33% believe that the military should only deploy to humanitarian missions. Only in Quebec, as it has been traditionally dating back to the second world war, were people more likely [43%] to say that the military should only deploy for humanitarian purposes.

For military spending, only 17% of Canadians think we already spend too much on Defence. 35% say we spend too little on our Armed Forces, while an almost equal amount [34%] think we’re spending the right amount as is. Again, the contrasts in Canada are based in Quebec and Alberta, with the former are most likely to oppose increased spending, and the latter most in support.

When contrasting our military spending to the current fiscal deficit, 41% said we should reduce military spending when the Afghan mission is over, but 48% said we should look in other areas to find cuts. There was very little support for maintaining military spending only for home defence, leaving international missions to other nations.

46% of Canadians said that we should acquire what is considered essential military equipment upgrades for our soldiers, with 36% supporting the withdrawal of our soldiers from combat in lieu of spending. Only 10% supported delaying equipment upgrades to fight the deficit, even if it meant putting our soldiers at risk.

For the record, the Conservative government has reversed its previous promises on military spending by announcing a slowing of the annual growth of spending to the Canadian military, saving $525 million in 2012-2013 in planned spending after troops leave Afghanistan. They will save $1 billion annually starting in 2013-2014. By 2015, $2.5 billion would be saved through reduced spending increases to the military.