British Columbians Providing Tepid Mandate for NDP-Green Partnership

[Ottawa – June 29, 2017] With the announcement that the Green Party of British Columbia would provide support to an NDP minority government, we asked British Columbians what they thought of this partnership. With 43 per cent of BC residents supporting this agreement, the mandate for this deal is quite tepid. Nevertheless, of those who have an opinion, the lean is to give this partnership a try.

While we did not ask provincial vote intention in this survey, we can look at how support for the NDP-Green partnership varies by federal party support. Support is – unsurprisingly – strongest among federal NDP and Green supporters. Federal Liberals, meanwhile, are evenly split, while Conservatives are fiercely opposed (reflecting the fact that the British Columbia Liberal Party is more of a small-c conservative party, at least compared to its federal namesake).

What is perhaps most striking about the underlying demographic patterns is the education gap. A majority of university graduates support the notion of an NDP-Green partnership while those with a high school education lean decisively in the opposite direction. The deal also finds comparatively greater opposition among seniors and men.

Methodology:

This survey was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for this survey are June 1-19, 2017. In total, a random sample of 882 adults aged 18 and over who reside in British Columbia responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as gender, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.

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