I’ve always suspected, you know…
I don’t think “random” is the right word if you get the same results no matter what you enter.
It’s my secret shame; I’ve never been redneck enough. {Hangs head.}
I’ve just did a bit of checking, and as best as I can tell, each question moves you in one direction or another on one of two axes: economically left/right, and socially conservative/liberal. I just ran through the questionnaire and picked the most right/conservative answers, and my result put me in the same direction as the conservatives, but even further from centre. I tried leaving the economic questions right-ish, and changing all my social questions to socially liberal, and my result changed to the top-right quadrant, pretty far away from /all/ parties (but closest to the Cons).
If you want a cheatsheet, here are the questions, which axis they measure, and the answer that makes you economically right or socially conservative. Have fun skewing the poll to whatever result you see fit.
1S Pull troops out of Afghanistan: strongly disagree
2S Increase military presence in arctic: strongly agree
3E spend on military: much more
4E gov spending makes economy worse: strongly agree
5E reduce fed budget: strongly agree
6E seek closer economy with US: strongly agree
7S damage caused by tar sands exaggerated: strongly agree
8E carbon tax: strongly disagree
9E stricter environmental regulation: strongly disagree
10E private health care: much more
11E gov fund daycare: strongly disagree
12E easier EI: strongly disagree
13S immigrants must speak Eng or Fre: strongly agree
14S new immigrants: many fewer
15S accomodate religious minorities: much less
16S young offenders sentenced as adults: strongly agree
17S scrap long gun registry: strongly agree
18S marijuana should be crime: strongly agree
19S easier abortions: strongly disagree
20S marriage only man/woman: strongly agree
21S assisted suicide: strongly disagree
22S abolish senate: strongly disagree
23E no gov funding for parties: strongly agree
24S only bilinguals in supreme court: strongly disagree
25S feds have say in Quebec culture: strongly agree
26S Quebec constitutionally recognized as nation: strongly disagree
27S independent Quebec: strongly agree
28E contribute more to pensions: strongly disagree
29E wealthy pay taxes: much less
30E corporations pay taxes: much less
Those answers are so far to the right that there’s probably no voter in all of Canada who would answer every one like this: not even in Alberta! Even if you moderately agree or disagree to some of these it places you in the Liberal camp. Hell I even apparently ended up in the NDP camp on some.
So, it told me I too was a Liberal. And in some areas I suppose I am, for instance marijuana, abortion, same sex marriage, immigration, support of religious minorities.
I’m conservative in my views on the armed forces, the economy and the environment though.
How the hell are these conservative opinions?:
4E gov spending makes economy worse: strongly agree
22S abolish senate: strongly disagree
I’m pretty sure stimulus spending and senate abolition were/are supported by the Conservative party.
Yes on the former, but on the latter, the Conservative party supported Senate reform (an elected Senate in particular) and not Senate abolition.
I broke it. Wouldn’t give me the answer at all.
Anarchist!
I would say that the stimulus spending was not in the original budget of 2008 and was put in place as a compromise with the opposition parties. As a rule of thumb, conservatives tend to believe that tax money that remains in the pocket of the original earner is a better contribution to the economy than any Government-based program that re-distributes wealth. Hence the corporate tax relief in the last budget that was tabled was viewed by the Conservatives as an appropriate ‘stimulus’ to the economy. (I hope I have put that fairly - it is not a point of view that I share, and so I’m trying to describe it without censuring it through my own bias.)
As to senate reform vs. senate abolition, that’s a tough one. Reform famously campaigned for a triple ‘E’ senate - elected, effective and equal. They advocated reform rather than abolition. The NDP has advocated abolition. Perhaps those are the roots of that question and its skew.
Ultimately, though, aren’t we talking about a toy on a media website? Did this vote compass ever claim to have more statistical rigour than a Cosmo quiz, or a ‘what kind of cocktail are you?’ question on FaceBook games. I haven’t participated - I’ve been making up my own mind on issues (for better or for worse) since I was out of elementary school.
Well, sure. I don’t anyone would take this quiz seriously. 
In America: Upset that a black man who lived in Indonesia and has Kenyan ancestry becomes President.
In Canada: Upset that white American is running for Prime Minister. Would prefer black Kenyan.
Until recently, a black Harian refugee was our Viceroy / Governor General – and a darn good one at that.
^ Psssst…
rrrrrrrrrtrrrrrrrrrrr
I beg your pardon - I have been having a long conversation with a FaceBook friend who is a staunch Alberta Conservative, who does take this quiz seriously. Painfully seriously. He and his friends are up in arms about how the Vote Compass reveals the deep seated bias at the CBC and how it is part of a plot to trick Conservative thinkers into voting Liberal. They ranting about how every member of the Conservative party has a right to be royally pissed off, and the CBC should be defunded right this second. In the heat of posting in two different places, I was speaking to you as if you had said some of the things that Chris had been saying.
I apologize for the tone of my remarks in that post. That was a bit offside.
I don’t think you’re considering the inescapable fact that a lot of people are stupid and lazy – a five minute quiz to inform you of who to vote for is a perfect solution for people on the fence about the upcoming election who don’t want to do crazy things like looking into the issues and the platforms of the various parties.
FTR, although I consider myself very much a fiscal conservative and somewhat of a social liberal, the quiz put me almost dead centre of the graph, much, much closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives, which is ludicrous.
What the Dread Pirate said. That was my first thought when I read about the whole schmozz.
I agree that the Green Party should be included in the debates, although there is a certain kind of irony or symmetry to excluding them. 7% of the vote is worth 0% of the seats, so it’s worth 0% of the debate spots too :).
I have to disagree about Duceppe though. I find it hilarious to have him up there carefree and mouthing off a bit while all the other leaders are being so careful.
I’ve been giving the whole Vote Compass quiz defaulting to Liberal, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t cool. For one thing, it gives the impression that voting anything except Liberal means you’re an extremist nutjob, and for another, it hasn’t encapsulated the parties it’s supposed to be describing very well at all. Bad job, CBC. Bad, sloppy job, unless you’re trying to subtly influence voting, in which case, well, bad sloppy job for getting caught at it.
The Calgary Herald seems to disagree:
I disagree, too - In my opinion, a lot of Canadians vote with more emotion than logic. I’d be willing to bet a lot of Progressive Conservatives would find themselves closer to the Liberal Party on any objective scale than the Conservatve Party as it stands now. I just tried to fill it in as closely as the average conservative in my riding (suburbs of Ottawa) would, and I landed almost exactly on the Conservative logo on the chart. I didn’t think I cam across as an extremist nutjob at all, but did express absolute opinions on themes such as national security and fiscal policy.
Also - the CBC vetted every position in this with representatives from every party… (cite: http://federal.votecompass.ca/faq/) I’m not sure how much more transparant they could have been. After filling it in, take a minute to review the answers versus their weighting - it is actually pretty well done.