(Quebec) The Quebec mayor’s office oriented the presentation of a recent survey on the tram project in such a way as to inflate the appearance of support for the project, despite warnings from municipal officials, suggest emails made public Thursday under a request for access to information.
The mayor of Quebec met the media on October 27 to present the latest probe ordered by the City from the Léger firm. Bruno Marchand insisted at a press conference on the figure of 40% positive opinions regarding the tramway.
This is the figure that Léger’s documents put forward. It was not that far from the support measured in May and October 2022, which was between 41% and 44%, suggesting relatively stable support.
However, it was by combing through the polls, after the press conference, that the journalists noted that support was more like 36%. The 40% figure was obtained by excluding the 10% of respondents who had no opinion.
It was therefore 40% of the 90% with an opinion on the project who had a positive reading of it, or 36% of all respondents. This approach, which had never been applied in previous polls, was not explained to the media. It was only mentioned with an asterisk in Léger’s document.
The next day, questioned by journalists, Mayor Bruno Marchand denied having wanted to deceive people. “If I did it again, would I do it differently? The answer is yes. Were there any hiding places? There is none,” assured the elected official.
Email exchanges made public Thursday show that officials had expressed their reservations to the mayor’s office, which ultimately decided to go with the 40% figure.
“We can very quickly become defensive with this game of interpretation and give the impression that we are “playing” with the data so as not to accept the 6% drop… The notion of transparency will be raised,” warned Nathalie Cloutier , communications manager at the Tramway Project Office.
“I agree with Nathalie […] There is a risk of confusion,” replied Léger’s vice-president for Quebec, Cyntia Darisse, in an email.
A communications advisor relies on Nathalie Cloutier “and our colleagues in the firm to validate the direction for the presentation of the figures”.
“What must be highlighted is the 40%,” says Karine Breton, deputy director of the mayor’s office. “I would maintain the 40% please,” adds the press secretary of the mayor of Quebec, Thomas Gaudrealt.
The idea of including a page to explain the change in methodology was discussed in the email exchanges. But it will ultimately be removed from the presentation. “Some comments collected from the firm: We are finally removing slide 6,” begins the email from a communications advisor.
“Obviously, the project office wanted to be cautious, Léger also, but it is clearly a desire of the cabinet to do it in this way, it is a political intention,” reacted the leader of the official opposition at the hotel of Quebec City, Claude Villeneuve.
“It doesn’t help to say that the support is maintained and then we realize that the support has dropped,” he said. This is nothing to help credibility. »
Mayor Marchand’s office did not wish to comment on the content of the emails on Thursday, recalling that the mayor had already expressed his mea culpa the day after the presentation of the survey.