Thursday, July 24, 2008

Massive Poll - Lasergate Edition

A lot of pieces of the MASSIVE NEW POLL puzzle have fallen into place since I did that first fateful and fruitless Canada 411 search on "KLRVU", the polling company that conducted the thing.

The fact that the company seemed to have no phone number or profile of any kind raised more questions. A phone number (204-999-7446) for "KLRVU" buried deep down in the CNW press release (but noticeably absent from the lifesite version of the same press release) was the Swing-a-way that opened the whole can of anti-choice worms. We now know:

1. In a Canada 411 search the number came up as "non-published" -- very strange for a business, but a Google search of the same phone number showed that it belonged not to "KLRVU Polling", but to a company called "Lasercut Designs" of Winnipeg. (Note -- the same Canada 411 search, done just now, returns a "No listing found", which is a little different from "non-published". Hmm?)

2. "Lasercut Designs" is run by Allan and Katherine Bruinooge -- their last name was determined by this fundraising letter (PDF)

3. Allan Bruinooge is the brother of Rod Bruinooge, CPC MP for Winnipeg South ; Rod "the scourge of abortion" Bruinooge's two anti-choice cents on the Morgentaler OC can be found here.

4. Allan Bruinooge himself is a "Tory party organizer" who ran in a civic by-election in 2005 (382 votes - w00t!) and possibly, GW denier, if he's the same Allan Bruinooge who wrote this review of an anti-climate crisis DVD:

"Shame shame" indeed.

So, those are the players around "KLRVU Polling". It was suggested that since the polling company is somewhat suspect, the poll itself might not have been done at all, but that was laid to rest by someone at Rabble who said they were called. The poll's methodology still stinks -- a fully automated phone-polling process is one step up from an online poll. If that.

Admittedly, this is a little more than I was hoping to find -- when I started looking into this thing, I was searching for connections to the "prolife" movement. I wasn't expecting to find a heaping helping of those connections with a side of CPC involvement. Basically, it looks like a "tory organizer" (and brother of an anti-choice CPC MP) conducted an anti-Morgentaler poll for a group of anti-abortion whackjobs, Campaign Life Coalition. Nothing illegal, nothing too bizarre, but also nothing that helps maintain the pretense that the CPC is a "moderate conservative" party.

Hopefully, another "coathanger" to CPC electoral success. As far as what it means to the MASSIVE POLL's credibility, res ipsa loquitur. It speaks for itself.

ETA: BigCityLib takes a look at this thing, too.

AND THE BEAT-DOWN GOES ON: Here's someone in Manitoba who works in the polling business and says they've never heard of KLRVU Polling. Ever:
"I have never heard of KLRVU Research. Ever. Considering I do work for a polling company and know who we compete with in our very limited marketplace, that's a little odd, isn't it?"
Heh.

(h/t: Eric, timekeeper, LuLu, Alison et al)