Yesterday, I received a news alert from Ipsos Reid regarding a recent poll of theirs conducted on behalf of CanWest/Global News, indicating that half (51%) of Canadians support combat operations in Afghanistan, and immediately dismissed the report as biased and misleading.

What really got my attention, was the way Ipsos chose to manipulate the data to promote the report. Only 25% of respondents indicated 'strong' support for military operations in Afghanistan with another 27% indicating only 'somewhat' support, yet Ipsos chose to publish a report indicating 51% support for military operations in Afghanistan.

That's not credible. People may 'somewhat' support operations, but ask them to vote 'for' or 'against' operations, and that figure will drop considerably because 'somewhat' doesn't carry enough significant weight.

With that in mind, the same poll indicates that 18% of respondents 'somewhat' opposes military operations in Afghanistan, so if you subtract 18% (somewhat opposed) from 27% (somewhat supports) you're left with a figure of 9% that 'somewhat' supports operations, but since that figure doesn't carry enough significant weight either, the most you'd probably be able to assign to it is a value of about 5% and that's probably stretching it.

Conclusion: Only 30% (25% + 5%) of Canadians support combat operations in Afghanistan.