Premier Doug Ford is discounting public-opinion polls suggesting he is unpopular because some of those surveys appear in the Toronto Star.Ford — who has been booed at the Raptors’ victory celebration, the Special Olympics launch, and the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, among other events — insisted Thursday that Ontarians are behind him.“I can tell you one thing, everywhere I’m going, right across this province, people are saying the same message: keep going,” he told reporters in the Niagara community of Fonthill.Asked about recent polls indicating his personal popularity has plummeted a year after he was elected, Ford bristled.“Well, it’s the Toronto Star’s numbers. I don’t believe … Star readership polls. I worry about the ones at election day,” the premier said.Veteran pollster John Corbett, whose Corbett Communications tracking polls appear monthly in the Star, said the firm “stands behind its methodology.”“He appears to be confusing the online panel we use with the reader polls you run on your website,” he said, referring to the unscientific straw polls on many news websites, including thestar.comLike several other polling companies, Corbett uses Maru/Blue’s Maru Voice Canada opt-in online panel for its polls.“The Maru/Blue panel is the best in Canada right now, which is why so many firms use it,” he said, noting some of the Conservatives’ own internal party research uses the same panel.“That aside, we’re not the only firm that is seeing similar results,” said Corbett, adding Pollara Strategic Insights, Mainstreet Research, Ipsos, and Innovative Research Group have each found similar results using differing methodologies.Read more: Has Doug Ford finally put the cronyism scandal behind him?Struggling with violence, Lawrence Heights may not get the community centre it was promisedFrom a McDonald’s GO station to the 2022 ...
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