Mid-Games Poll Reflects Lack Of Support For Costly Olympics

CBC News has just released results from an opinion poll taken midway through the 2010 Olympic Games. The poll, conducted by Environics, asked people two questions.

The first question, is vague to the point of being unhelpful.

"In your opinion, will these Olympics have great benefits, some benefits, very few benefits or no benefits at all for each of the following: Canada as a whole; B.C.; the city of Vancouver?"

Even hardened critics are going to find the Olympics have "some benefits" and, sure enough, the numbers are high: 83% of respondents thought there would be "great benefits" (45%) or "some benefits" (38%) for Canada as a whole.

The Games are in full swing - with wall-to-wall media coverage of the Olympics - so there's obviously going to be more positive sentiment now about them.

The CBC's headline, Belief in Olympic benefits climbing doesn't really tell the full story. The poll had two questions.

Question 2, about the taxpayer dollar spend on the Olympics, is more clear cut in its language:

"governments are spending too much, too little, or about the right amount, of taxpayer dollars on the Olympics"

Result: 70% of BC residents (unchanged) and 70% of Vancouver residents (up 5%) think "governments are spending too much."

Sixty residents in Vancouver doesn't seem that large a sampling pool and the disclaimer says that there is "a margin of error of plus or minus 11.8".