Don't like the message? Shoot the messenger!

My first teaching gig was at Cambrian College in Sudbury ON. I was a marketing professor and taught an upper-level marketing research course. Marketing research was what I did for a living before I went into academic life, and I used the course to give my students as close to a real-world experience as one can in an academic setting.

In the mid-1970s Sudbury's downtown core was in a deep funk. People were taking their retail business into the area of town called New Sudbury, preferring to shop in the New Sudbury Shopping Centre. The Sudbury & District Chamber of Commerce was anxious to solve this problem for the sake of their downtown members. I was approached by Chamber officials to survey Sudbury shoppers to see what the Chamber could do to bring business back to the central business district.

My students did a first rate job. We had a representative sample of each area of the community (we used the voters lists from the various political wards of the city), and an excellent survey instrument. The results indicated a very big challenge for the city, but at least provided the information necessary to develop a road map for recovery.

I presented the findings to the Chamber membership along with some preliminary recommendations. They were warmly received. In fact, some months later the same officials approached me about doing a follow-up survey the next year to measure any progress as a result of their efforts to improve the shopping experience.

But one member seemed to be completely dissatisfied with the results. I don't know what he was upset about. [I do know that when I did similar work in the mid-1980s for the Langley BC Downtown Business Association, we found that merchants had a very different view of reality than did the shoppers.] But he was bound and determined to undermine the results any way he could.

Eventually he phoned the Dean of the College to complain about my survey, attacking both its methodology and its findings, while taking potshots at me as well. Given that I had done marketing research professionally for a large steel company and had been valued as an important player in their marketing efforts, it was pretty easy to shrug off his attack. I knew my business. But I was irritated on behalf of my students who had worked so hard to do a good job. I'm happy to say that the Dean found me to be the more credible and no further action was taken.

This gentleman was simply following a long-standing practice, wonderfully described in Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2, where Lord Northumberland is seeking news of his brother and his son, Percy:

How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand....

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye:
Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departing friend (Act 1, scene 1).

Now in Northumberland's case, he was willing to accept the bad news, while acknowledging that messengers are often fearful of delivering it to people who probably don't want to hear it. Wikipedia notes that "During the early Warring States period of China (5th to 3rd centuries BC), the concept of chivalry and virtue prevented the executions of messengers sent by opposing sides." In other times and places, messengers were not as fortunate.

Being a messenger is no fun, unless the news is good.

It's an old trick of the political trade that when one receives bad news, one tries to distract from its impact by questioning the methodology of the survey, or the personal credibility of the individual using the results. The hope is that people's eyes will glaze over at arguments about how data was acquired and interpreted, or that they will be convinced by accusations about the source, even if said accusations are irrelevant to the issue.

Joyce Arthur, the apparent guru of Canadian pro-abortion activists, and her ilk are hard at it trying to shoot (or at least seriously disable) a couple of messengers. Two of Canada's leading research firms, Environics and Angus Reid, have both demonstrated that most Canadian women support legislation that would find a person who attacks a pregnant woman and her unborn baby to be guilty of two crimes, not one, if injury or death results for either entity (I can't say either person, because in law an unborn baby is denied personhood).

As many of you, my faithful reader, know, Life Canada has for a number of years commissioned a survey regarding life issues by the Environics Research Group. Respondents were asked whether they would support a bill making it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus during an attack on the mother. 72% of Canadians and 75% of Canadian women answered in the affirmative (see Life Canada news release Oct. 19, 2007). MP Ken Epp referred to these findings often when arguing the merits of his private member's bill C-484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act.

Now look first at the response of Joyce Arthur surrogate in the House of Commons, MP Alexa McDonough (Hansard, December 13, 2007):

Let me say that I also heard many comments about how this is something that women very much want and need, and he even referred to some polling. I have to say I would need to be convinced based on a great deal more information than he shared, but if he wanted to share the basis for a claim that there is a very high percentage of women who are really looking for this, I would give it my consideration.

However, I would find it extremely surprising, because I have to say that in my almost 40 years of involvement in the women's movement, and my 28 years in public life, where it has been well known that I very much see the responsibility of myself and every other woman in public life to be responsive to women's concerns, I have never had a single woman, a single advocate, a single representative of a single organization, or an individual family member come to me and say that this is a law they would like to see implemented.

That does not mean it is not worthy of introduction and consideration, I want to say that, but to cite it as something that large numbers of women want and need, I find surprising. Maybe I am a little bit suspicious about that, when I would think that if this was something widely felt and wanted by women there might be some indication in the House and there would be a good number of women here for this debate and wanting to put forward their views.

Never does she actually mention the results of the Environics survey, contrary as they are to her preferred view of the world. Instead she discredits them indirectly by saying that they are insufficient, and that no woman has ever told her that such legislation was needed. She says that any indication that women took a different view from her on the issues would be "surprising." Clearly she wants us to disregard the results of a highly professional and credible survey.

Then she and others try to go further by focusing attention on Mr. Epp. He bases his views on credible survey data? Then let's undermine his personal credibility and hope that people will then ignore the inconvenient survey results:

Ms McDonough: At the outset, I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park....Maybe I am a little unfair in saying this, but in regard to coming from the caucus with by far the least number of women in the House, then one wonders whether it is really an authoritative basis for the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park to talk about how much women want and need this....[I]t further made me uncomfortable to hear several references, both from the Conservative sponsor of the bill and from the Liberal who spoke in support of it, to a number of American states, mostly southern U.S. states, and in particular, South Carolina, as one of the states that has had considerable experience with this bill.

Ms Faille: I was recently reading some surveys and responses to surveys. We learned that the Conservative member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park, who describes himself as pro-life, had said in response to a survey conducted by the Campaign Life Coalition for the 2006 federal election that he considered that human life began at conception. In 1997, he responded that if he was elected, he would work to remove abortion from the services covered by the Canada Health Act. He is not the first Conservative member to have said that. There are also rumours going around about a committee being formed here in the House with both Conservative and Liberal members.

The previous bill the Conservatives introduced was similar, but was deemed unconstitutional. A few changes have been made to it, but the objective is the same. The Conservatives' determination is an indirect threat to women's rights, and that threat is evident in the member's remarks.

M. Gravel: As a Catholic priest, I find it somewhat difficult to relate to this bill quite simply because the member who tabled it belongs to a pro-life group, the Campaign Life Coalition, which, in my humble opinion, is a fairly extremist and fanatical group. I am pro-life, but I do not belong to that group....I also mentioned that pro-life group, Campaign Life Coalition. I know that the president of the Quebec group is Luc Gagnon. That group's journal is always full of condemnations and rejections, and there is never any love or compassion in their journal. In my view, what is needed is compassion when a woman is dealing with a pregnancy caused by rape or any unwanted pregnancy. I do not feel there is any compassion within that group. I therefore oppose that pro-life group, just I oppose the pro-choice group, whose views are, in my opinion, too exaggerated, too unrealistic.

Ms Mathyssen: I am profoundly concerned that Bill C-484 is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to make abortions illegal in Canada. I am extremely disappointed that the member would use tragic murders of young women to push an anti-abortion agenda.

Ms Jennings: I can only conclude that the sponsor of this bill and his colleagues in the Conservative Party are hoping to divide Canadian women on the emotional issue of violence against pregnant women. By couching his proposal in the language of choice, the rights of the unborn and recognizing the grief for a lost child, the member is once again playing the classic Conservative game of playing on emotions and playing to its socially conservative base while trying to make this issue appear to be one that all women should support by playing on the grief and heinous nature of the crimes involved.

Ms Freeman: The sponsor of Bill C-484 cannot be neutral either, since the hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park is a self-described pro-life advocate. In 1997, he even said that if he were elected, he would work to exclude abortion from the services covered under the Canada Health Act. In 2003, he supported Motion M-83, a motion by the Canadian Alliance that attacked women's freedom of choice. The legacy of everything women have fought for is at stake here.

Notice that the critics have stayed away from any hard evidence in making their critique. MPs of all political stripes are forever telling us what Canadians want and don't want. But if the research suggests that there is hard evidence for what Canadians want, and it runs counter to one's ideology, than one has no option but to ignore it, undermine it, deny it, or distract from it. [There is another option, of course--accept the validity of the data and change one's views, but that would require an integrity that is often found lacking among our government representatives.]

Regrettably for the critics of Bill C 484, another messenger has arrived with the same message: Canadians, and especially Canadian women, like and support the bill.

A new poll finds 70 percent of Canadians support an unborn victims bill pending the nation's parliament. They strongly support the concept the bill puts forward that criminals should be held accountable for killing and injuring both mother and child when they violently attack a pregnant woman.

The Vancouver-based Angus Reid Strategies conducted the poll and found just 19 percent of the people in Canada oppose the measure.

The survey found 44 percent of Canadians strongly support the bill while 26 percent moderately support it. Another 11 percent are undecided....

Although pro-abortion groups have attacked the bill saying it would only serve to stop abortions, just 24 percent buy their argument that it is a veiled attempt to prohibit abortions. The rest understand it's a measure to protect women and children.

Not surprisingly, 74 percent of women and 66 percent of men support the bill (LifeNews, March 13, 2008).

As a former marketing research professional I find it significant that while the Environics poll was done in advance of Mr. Epp's bill becoming a focal point, the Angus Reid survey came afterwards and dealt with C-484 specifically. Yet the results are, for all intents and purposes, identical.

Choice Joyce is already heading down the well-worn path:

That (i.e., the results) upsets Joyce Arthur of the Pro-Choice Action Network who claims the poll was "oversimplified" and says the bill will lead to stopping abortions. (LifeNews March 20, 2008).

The Angus Reid people responded to her criticism the same way I did to the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce guy: We know our business.

Angus Reid Strategies’ director of global studies, Mario Canseco, talked with the Vancouver newspaper and said the poll was unbiased and not financed by any outside party with an interest in the results of the voting on the bill.

Canseco said Arthur's reaction to the poll is "normal" from people who are disappointed the results don't support their position.

"This is one of the ways people react to surveys that show that not everyone agrees with them," he said (LifeNews March 20, 2008).

Next Ms Arthur will start attacking Ken Epp and his party again. I wonder, however, how the average Canadian woman feels about Ms Arthur's assessment of her intelligence:

"Feminists who are politically aware hear about this bill and immediately know what the problem is," Arthur told the Vancouver Straight newspaper.

The pro-abortion activist appeared to indicate she didn't think Canadians were able to understand the legislation enough to answer questions about it in a poll.

Now that's patronizing.