I must admit, I’m a bit puzzled by all this. I looked at the 2007 SES survey (http://www.sesresearch.com/library/polls/IRPP%20February%207%202007.pdf), and can’t seem to find any evidence that they recycled the question from the IRPP’s 1999 survey.

But you’re absolutely right that the SES data points to a seeming gap between perceptions of the Charter, and perceptions of the Court. My inclination is to say that this discrepancy has more to do with the wording of the SES questions, and less to do with any actual ill will toward the Court. (Like I said in my earlier post, I don’t put much stock in these one-time snapshot surveys, and strongly feel that we’re much better off looking at studies that track attitudinal trends over the long-term.) That said, there may be something more to these numbers. I’d certainly be keen to hear what others have to say.

And as to your question… the IRPP does indeed publish Policy Options. But I don’t think it has its own in-house polling unit. Instead, my understanding is that the IRPP usually takes questions developed by experts in a given field, then commissions a polling firm (in this case, SES) to conduct the survey on the IRPP’s behalf.

cheers,
Jon

The SES survey actually asked the same question in 2007 that you suggest was in the IRPP study that McLachlin cited in her 2001 speech, the same exact wording. You can get the PDF link off of the SES site, it is at the bottom of the page in the box adjacent to that which contained the charter poll.

The two distinctions I wished to draw were between the question about the Charter and the Supreme Court itself following up with the contrast to the historic stats from C.J. McLachlin’s speech.

I am also interested to understand better the relationship between IRPP and Policy Options which comissioned the SES poll. It is my understanding that Policy Options is a publication of the IRPP, is this incorrect? If so why would Policy Options commission a separate poll by SES if IRPP is already doing some of this on its own?

“Based on what you know, would you say the Supreme Court of Canada is moving our society in the right direction, or the wrong direction?”

By contrast, the IRPP study cited by Justice McLachlin asked respondents a different question:

“How satisfied are you with the way the Supreme Court has been working?”

Of course, these two questions sound similar enough – both are apparent attempts to guage Canadians’ satisfaction with the Court. But subtle differences in wording are such that we can easily conceive of the two questions leading to dramatically different results. The IRPP question is solely concerned with the respondent’s feelings about the Court. By contrast, the SES question asks respondents for both their feelings about the Court and their feelings about the direction being taken by society as a whole. Thus, for example, we can conceive of some respondents in the SES survey answering “No,” not because they are unhappy with the Court, but because they are unhappy with the direction in which society as a whole is headed. By focusing on only one variable, the IRPP study gives us a much better portrait of attitudes toward the Court.

The IRPP’s survey question (though far from perfect) also has another advantage. In particular, it has been used in successive studies, over the course of several years. Thus, while it may not give an entirely accurate snapshot of public attitudes at a particular moment in time, it does allow us to compare results over the long-term, and thereby identify trends in public opinion toward the Court. When we do, fans of the Court will be relieved to learn, we find that public support for the Court is not dropping at all. On the contrary, over time, satisfaction with the Court has risen significantly. For example, the IRPP has used the following questions in several surveys:

“When the Supreme Court of Canada says a law conflicts with the Charter, who should the final say – Parliament or the Supreme Court?”

In 1987, 62% of respondents chose the Court. Similarly, in 1999, 61% chose the Court. However, faced with the same question in 2002, a remarkable 71% chose the Court over Parliament.

There are several possible reasons for this apparent increase in support for the Court. One possibility is that Canadians are familiar, and content with the Court’s work (though this seems unlikely, since the latest IRPP data also suggests that that Canadians know relatively little about what the Court actually does).

Another possible explanation is that Canadians have simply grown accustomed to judicial power, and come to recognize it as relatively benign, despite warnings to the contrary by so many critics of judicial activism.

Finally, we may be witnessing a “generational” effect. In other words, support for the Court may be rising, as generations of Canadians who grew up studying the Charter in school begin to replace those who grew up in the pre-Charter era. Indeed, this would be consistent with findings in other countries, where studies have found that support for constitutional courts tends to grow as the courts themselves get older.

For more on public opinion for the Supreme Court – and methodological issues more generally – readers would do well to consult the IRPP study:

FLETCHER, Joseph F. & HOWE, Paul. “Public Opinion and the Courts,” Choices (May, 2000).

Other useful resources include:

CALDEIRA, Gregory A. and GIBSON, James L., and SPENCE, Lester. “Measuring Attitudes Toward the United States Supreme Court,” American Journal of Political Science 47:2 (April, 2003), 354-367.

CALDEIRA, GIBSON, and BAIRD, “On the Legitimacy of National High Courts,” American Political Science Review, 92:2 (June, 1998).

HAUSEGGER and RIDDELL, “The Changing nature of Public Support for the Supreme Court of Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 37:1 (March, 2004), 23-50.