Report on the Survey of Registered Third Parties for the 43rd General Election: Wave 1 Final Report - Election Issues

Advocacy Activities

Financial agents were asked which advocacy activities their third party undertook during the election period, selecting all answers that apply in their situation. There was a total of 169 advocacy activities selected by financial agents. The most common activity was posting about election issues on social media (41 out of 55), followed by providing information about election issues on a website (35 out of 55) and advertising about election issues (33 out of 55) (see Figure 43). The least common advocacy activity third parties undertook was canvassing door to door about election issues (6 out of 55).

Election Issues and Advertising

Financial agents whose third party did not advertise about election issues were asked if their third party considered doing so. Over half (12 out of 22) said they did not consider advertising about election issues, about a quarter (6 out of 22) did consider it and almost a fifth (4 out of 22) did not know (see Figure 44).

The six financial agents who said their third party did consider advertising about election issues, but ultimately decided not to, were further asked what made their third party decide not to advertise. All six financial agents said they did not know.^{footnote 1}

Q48. What made your third party decide not to advertise about election issues? (Open-ended)
Base: Respondents who said they considered advertising about election issues (n=6).

Those who did advertise about election issues or considered doing so were asked about the ease of figuring out whether the issues they wanted to advertise about were election issues. Over half (22 out of 39) said it was difficult to figure out if they were election issues (see Figure 45). About four in ten (16 out of 39) said it was very difficult, and about one in seven (6 out of 39) said it was somewhat difficult. In contrast, a third (13 out of 39) said it was easy to figure out if the issues they wanted to advertise about were election issues. About a quarter (9 out of 39) said it was somewhat easy, and one in ten (4 out of 39) said it was very easy.

Of the 22 financial agents who said it was difficult to figure out whether the issues they wanted to advertise about were election issues, there were a total of 34 mentions for what made it difficult. The most common response was that the rules for advertising and what was allowed were not clear (13 out of 22), followed by the perception that the issues they worked on regularly were disallowed (e.g. climate change, women's issues) (8 out of 22) (see Figure 46).

When asked if they contacted Elections Canada to seek any clarification regarding advertising about election issues, most financial agents said they did (29 out of 55), about a third (20 out of 55) said they did not, and about one in ten (6 out of 55) said they did not know (see Figure 47).

For those who did contact Elections Canada to seek clarification, financial agents were quite split about whether they were satisfied with the help they received (see Figure 48). A little over half (15 out of 29) said they were satisfied with the help. Over a third (10 out of 29) said they were somewhat satisfied, and one in six (5 out of 29) said they were very satisfied. However, a little less than half (14 out of 29) said they were unsatisfied with the help they received. About three in ten (8 out of 29) said they were somewhat unsatisfied with the help, and about a fifth (6 out of 29) said they were very unsatisfied.

Financial agents who said they were unsatisfied with the help mostly said it was because their questions were not answered (e.g. they got transferred, had to decide themselves) (9 out of 16) (see Figure 49). Another common reason they mentioned was that the answers they received were unclear (e.g. ambiguous, inconsistent, general and/or vague) (5 out of 16). This question was asked to 14 financial agents; there were a total of 16 mentions provided by the respondents.^{footnote 2}

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