It's not a big thing. It's not a thing that makes my toes curl or has me shouting at the cat but, really, shouldn't that thing called "the rest of Canada" exclude Alberta? There is a presumption that by leaving out Quebec, we learn something new. Yet that is not the case. The graph displayed in the Globe and Mail today, the critical bit of which is up there, leads to the impression that it is Quebec which is locked in some immovable pattern that critically stifles the nation. By leaving out Quebec we are leaving out one of the areas that shares dynamic political change with the other provinces which have an interest in altering the course of political history. Alberta does not have that. The polls do not really matter there as what ever may come in the next elections non-Conservative seats shall number at 0-2. In Quebec, however, the Bloc could go from 38-60 seats with a blend of Tory-Grit picking up the rest and ant the moment that looks all Grit. Quebec ebbs and flows with the rest of us.
Surely that triggers a map feeding moment.
Comments
ry - May 12, 2009 11:35 PM
Wow, use a Q-test and the Barrister wants you to provide the Denver Oysters via your own organs. Jeez, Al, having read the article I have to ask, 'Is that what you got from that?"
One of the statistics bits I learned was that if you have one grouping that totally skews the mean and std dev, etc, you HAVE to look at what the pattern looks like sans that group. It's one of the things you do to find out if it is a problem with your machines or a lazy operator of the machines.
It does say something. Kind of like the question of 'what does the statistic that 50% of all marriages end in divorce mean?" Well, you could take it at face value, and say it's horrible. Or you could dig a little and find that if you remove the serial divorcees the stat drops below 1/3.
Of course other Provinces have dynamic relationships with Quebec. But leaving it at that obviously makes things look much worse than it actually is, it wouldn't be truthful to leave the stats skewed by the one, outlier, group.
But, again, that's what you got out of that? (does the 'dog is confused head tilt')
Jay Currie - May 13, 2009 4:22 AM
this rather reminds me of Catch-22 when Yossarian is told to censor letters. He does. Sometimes by taking out the adjectives, sometimes the verbs.
Alan - May 13, 2009 7:53 AM
Ry needs to feed the map.
Hans - May 13, 2009 12:34 PM
I agree with ry.
Alan - May 13, 2009 1:06 PM
My point being is that it is Alberta that skews as it is not a dynamic player whereas excluding Quebec is actually not statistically appropriate as it is subject to national trends even with its unique characteristics.
ry - May 14, 2009 11:48 PM
But they did that, Al. Not with a graph. They said that the western Provinces skew things as well. THey just didn't use a graph for it as well.
And I'm not seeing how Alberta doesn't fit the same trend you mentioned for the Quebecois. Libs are up six there, if I remember the article properly. Which is what the national trend, iirap. So Alberta would be following the national trend while maintaining its regional character(into the conservative pile).
And how does one feed the map? Is it like a dog? Is there a box of treats for it? ;)
Alan - May 15, 2009 12:05 AM
I wanna graph.
I wanna graph.
I wanna graph.
I wanna graph.
I wanna graph.
I wanna graph.
And Libs six points up or down in Alberta makes no change in seats.
Feed the map by going here and entering goofy map entries.