By Staff
September 3, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Do not mess with George Ward.
Mr. Ward, a resident of that part of Burlington that lies north o the QEW where life is quiet and sedentary.
Mr. Ward then read about the telephone election survey being done by Campaign Research who said they were doing the survey for a “marketing” organization and couldn’t say who because of a confidentiality agreement.
The survey focused on Burlington residents.
Ward had filed a complaint about the survey to the Market Research Intelligence Agency,
Dear MRIA,
Here is the content of the complaint:
I applaud you as a leading professional organisation representing the Canadian market research industry and the MRIA requirement for your member organizations to hold themselves to the highest level of quality and ethical standards.
Burlington resident George Ward
However your member “Campaign Research” is not holding themselves to your rigorous Professional Standards which creates this complaint.
A lady by the name of “Devon”, who stated she represented “Campaign Research”, contacted my home phone last week to conduct a survey regarding the upcoming Burlington elections. I agreed to participate in the telephone survey. “Devon” then proceeded to ask me questions related to the candidates for the upcoming Burlington election for mayor with my responses to be listed as a 1 to 10 order with 10 being my highest recommendation.
Upon my identification of Ms. Marianne Meed-Ward as a 10 and the other candidates being lower the questions changed drastically to topics including racism related to clothing worn (i.e. hijab, etc.), domestic abuse and other non-appropriate questions which to me were an attempt to cast dispersion along with repugnant, disreputable and scandalous implications onto candidate Meed Ward.
MRIA member “Campaign Research” has seriously violated the MRIA Code of Conduct for Market and Social Research and I will attempt to identify the violated clauses below:
A. The goals of the Common Standard of Disclosure and the Member Declaration are:
I. To support sound and ethical practice in the conduct of survey and public opinion research.
B. We, members of the MRIA, pledge ourselves to … integrity … .
C. We further pledge ourselves to reject all tasks or assignments that would require activities inconsistent with the principles of the MRIA Code and this declaration.
D. Principles of Professional Responsibility in Our Dealings with People
I. We will avoid practices or methods that may … mislead participants … .
II. We will not misrepresent our research or conduct other activities ( … or political campaigning) under the guise of conducting research.
In summary the MRIA has an excellent “Code of Conduct” but it is apparent your membership namely “Campaign Research” has failed to abide by the code and in particular the statements above.
I trust you will take the necessary corrective action to remedy the above non-compliance by “Campaign Research”. Thank you in advance for your attention and you are welcome to contact me for further details.
The organization George Ward filed the complaint with appears to project the image of a very professional group of people.
We will let you know how the MRIA responds to the complaint.
Related news story:
Unfortunately, look at the resume of the campaign research company. This is not their first rodeo. They have worked on many high level campaigns.
When deep pockets support…we know where the complaints go…File 13
If only there were more individuals like Mr. Ward. Seems to me, he would make and excellent councillor?
Now that is a complaint letter!
Kudos and two thumbs up to George Ward!! Well done!!
These kind of scurrilous election tactics have no place in our political process. It is one thing to challenge or question a candidate based on his or her political views of policies. To indulge in this type of cheap, underhanded behaviour is not only unethical it is frankly appalling. All residents, regardless of who they support for Mayor, should be disturbed by this type of behaviour.
If, as is suspected, a developer or nameless lobby group was behind this, then it reflects very badly on their lack of ethics, probity and business judgement. If they don’t like what a candidate is advocating, and in this case, Marianne Meed Ward, then follow the process outlined on the City of Burlington’s website dealing with registration of third party advertisers. Plead your case in the public domain so that residents can see what you support, and more importantly, the reasons why. Let us also see how much money you are spending, and whose candidacy you are supporting.
Ah…but that would take guts, openness to scrutiny and transparency. Much easier I presume to lurk in the shadows and try to peddle influence by mounting a nasty smear campaign against your political opponents.
Kudos to Mr. Ward