Why polling in Saskatchewan needs to be taken with a grain of salt: expert

A few polls have been weighing in on the Saskatchewan political landscape over the past few months, but they may not tell the whole story.

Daniel Westlake, assistant professor in the department of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan, said a large number of polls are needed to get a true idea of what is going on, and explained why that is particularly challenging in Saskatchewan.

“Small populations are very difficult to poll accurately,” Westlake said.

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An Angus Reid poll done in August suggested that many respondents were in favour of the Sask. Party’s pronoun policy.

A poll from spark*insights in mid-October suggested that the pronoun policy was low on respondents’ priority list.

A Leger poll around the same time suggested that Canadians were torn on whether sexual orientation and gender identity should be discussed in schools.

And most recently, an independent poll from Insightrix, commissioned by the Skoop Podcast, suggests that the Sask. Party and the Sask. NDP are in a tighter race than some may think.

Westlake said caveats need to be added to all polling in terms of the timing and the number of polls.

“There’s always a danger that a poll is an outlier.”

He said there needs to be a large number of polls using a large number of methods, but said Saskatchewan has very few pollsters in the province.

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He said there needs to be a large number of respondents, which can be a problem for the Prairie province.

“With one million people there’s only going to be so many people who respond to a poll.”

Westlake said he’s seen about nine or 10 polls since the last election, noting that wasn’t enough.

“We have to treat all these numbers with a large amount of caution.”

He said we were also still a year away from the next election, adding that polls only tell us what people think today. He added there’s always something that could happen that could sway those votes.

“The other thing that we know is that campaigns matter.”

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He said campaigns won’t always move votes, but they can.

“We’re not going to see what the campaign looks like until really 11 months from now.”

Saskatchewan’s 30th general election is currently slated for Oct. 28, 2024, according to the Elections Saskatchewan website.

Westlake said we should be comparing and contrasting data points from several polls, noting that we shouldn’t be drawing conclusions until there’s more information available.