Regional survey unscientific

A public Niagara Region survey purported to be a key plank in designing the municipalities new strategic plan has no means to protect it from being spoofed.

The survey found on the Region’s website and part of the Shape Niagara initiative — announced by Regional Chair Alan Caslin during his state of the Region address last month — is an unscientific survey lacking a method to prevent a user from taking the survey multiple times and skew the results.

A Standard reporter has taken the survey 10 times. If a survey’s results can be manipulated by users taking it as many times as they want, the results are considered invalid.

“That’s a great question and I will be talking about this with our team,” said Niagara’s director of internal control and organizational performance, Maciej Jurczyk, when asked about the survey’s controls. “Our intention was to find a way to reach and engage as many people as possible.”

The survey — found at niagararegion.ca/shapeniagara — is a key feature of the initiative, which Caslin said will be used by the next regional council to map out a strategic plan.

“We learned our lessons from the last time around with our strategic plan when council felt somewhat alienated in not participating in the preparation of the strategic plan, so we won’t do that again,” Caslin said during his address.

The two-page survey asks users what they think Niagara’s strengths and weakness are, and to rank six generic indicators such as “health and wellness” and “economy and growth,” in order of importance.

Users are then asked to describe how Niagara Region can support the topranked indicators. For “economy and growth” the survey suggests “fostering an environment for jobs and prosperity” and “development support” as areas the region can support. Users can also write in their own answer.

Jurczyk said the Shape Niagara initiative has several ways to gather public input beyond the survey. The Region will soon announce a series of public town halls that will allow residents to provide feedback on the municipalities priorities.

While the initiative’s primary survey is unscientific, Jurczyk said Shape Niagara has access to other more rigorous data being collected by the Region.

He said there are master plans by several departments that have scientific surveys. Shape Niagara will also have access to the results of a telephone survey currently being conducted by the Region’s communication department.

That survey launched last week and is being conducted by Prairie Research Associates.