QC Poll: Split between GTFO AFG, Transform to Humanitarian Mission

[The Bread Guy]

If I've read the French version correctly (or, to be honest, if the Google English version is to be trusted), here's the breakdown of a recent CROP poll in Quebec:

CROP reveals that 38% of the Québécois want the withdrawal immediate of the soldiers Canadian .... Approximately 31% of the Québécois estimate that it is necessary to transform the current military mission in the area of Kandahar on mission humane and 20% believe that it is quite simply necessary to maintain our engagement until February 2009 as envisaged. Only 8% of the questioned people affirm that it the mission in Afghanistan as a long time as it is necessary to continue will be needed....

CROP poll,
conducted 13-23 September,
1001 participants,
margin of error 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.


Source: "Mission canadienne en Afghanistan: le Québec divisé", Joël-Denis Bellavance, La Presse (Ottawa), 4 Oct 07, viewed 4 Oct 07.

 

[GAP]

In the last year Crop, Decima, and the others have cut their costs dramatically by decreasing poll counts....the standard used to be 2,000, now it is 1,000.

 

[The Bread Guy]

In the last year Crop, Decima, and the others have cut their costs dramatically by decreasing poll counts....the standard used to be 2,000, now it is 1,000.

I've seen a lot of NATIONAL polls use ~1,000, too - based on my VERY limited experience, the more calls the poll sponsor is willing to pay for, the more calls that are made.

Mind you, dusting off my old stats text books, to get a 99% confidence level, with a +/- 4 percentage point margin of error, with a Quebec population of ~7.5M, you'd need ~1040 responses.  To drop the margin of error to 2% +/-, you'd need closer to 4,200 responses from Quebec alone.

Ya gets the accuracy you pays for.....