Apology to Corporate Research Associates Inc. and Don Mills

A recent blog post, written by Tim Bousquet and published at thecoast.ca May 26, was unfair to local polling company Corporate Research Associates and its president, Don Mills. The bulk of the blog post repeated excerpts from a press release from the citizens’ group Save the View. That press release claimed that a CRA poll on the proposed convention centre for downtown Halifax “included a confusing double negative,” but that’s simply incorrect: We’ve checked the poll questions, and they are straight-forward and direct. Save the View was wrong to claim otherwise, and The Coast was wrong to unquestioningly reprint the allegation without verfication of the facts.

Moreover, the same blog post was headlined “Is CRA push-polling the convention centre?” Push-polling is a serious and damaging allegation, and if demonstrated would injure the professional reputation and integrity of a company in the market research and public opinion polling business. But while the headline raised the suggestion that Mills was push-polling, there was no effort made to contact him or otherwise ascertain the facts behind the accusation. This was simply bad reporting. Furthermore, there was no truth to such an allegation.

For these failures, both The Coast and Tim Bousquet whole-heartedly and without reservation apologize to Mills and CRA for this false and damaging allegation. There is nothing at all to suggest that they have been push-polling or using confusing language in their polls, and we regret suggesting otherwise. The original blog post has been taken offline.