With university level statistical courses, I was very annoyed/irritated by the inaccuracies associated with the City’s Budget Survey and resulting conclusions! There are critical criteria that should to be met in any statistical survey in order for it to provide a confident level of accuracy:
The survey must be prepared by independent professionals — Training Development Officers — who ensure the questions are not biased, misleading or tainted in any way,
The survey must have responses from people based on appropriate percentages of all income levels/demographics,
An appropriate percentage (number) of survey respondents from each income level/demographic — likely lower to middle income — must be established to make the survey valid and this is best established by a qualified unbiased statistician, and
In order to achieve accurate feedback from all demographics the survey author must ensure that responses are from the targeted Demographics.
The survey conducted by City Hall did not follow any of the above methodologies! The survey questions were crafted by City administration, the survey did not target a spectrum of city demographics, and many residents — particularly low income and older people — do not have computers (are not on-line)! Failing to follow the basic criteria above makes this on-line survey misleading, potentially biased and virtually useless for it’s intended purpose, which appears to be testing the citizenry mood for Tax increases or a Levy!
What the survey does appear to have accomplished is to take inaccurate information and coalesce it into conclusions that City Hall can use to ratify their published agenda for increasing Taxation and/or instituting a property levy!
Probably like many, I was not even aware of this ridiculous survey that lasted four weeks! In addition, I find it incredulous, given the number of fixed, and low-income in the city, that a large number would rationally support a levy or large tax increase! The idea of people accepting of a tax increase is made even more unbelievable when recently The Globe and Mail stated that according to the Fraser Institute the average Canadian Family in 2018 paid more in taxes ($40,000) than they did on Clothing, Food and Shelter ($32,000)!
It seems to me that every year we continually get excessive — greater than inflation — tax or deceptive billing increases, larger City bureaucracy, big salaries at City Hall and little to no improvement in our services! This is not sustainable and needs to change!
-- Michael Dolan, HBSc.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
