A survey was collected in 1996–97 in which, early in the petition-gathering process by the Save Our Hospital Campaign to prevent the closing of St. Mary's Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario, known petition signers and a general cross-section of the public were sampled. The survey data demonstrated that signers of the “Save St. Mary's” petition did indeed have strong views about local health issues. The general public and the petition signers were differentiated not so much by personal health experiences or amount of contact with hospitals as by general concern among petitioners about the erosion of health care together with a conviction that the public should have a strong voice in health care decision making.
References
1.
I should qualify this by acknowledging David Zaret's work on petitions in 17th century England (Petitions and the 'invention' of public opinion in the English revolution. American Journal of Sociology 1996;101:1521). He shows that the petition has medieval lineage in English political culture, and that the evolution of petitioning (e.g., its relationship with printing) tells us much about the growth of public opinion as a political force. Nevertheless, the contrasts between modern British and American political culture noted herein are echoed by many authorities. See, for example, the Globe and Mail's editorial position (17 April, 1997) on the related matter of governance by referenda.
2.
DawsonRM. The Government of Canada. Toronto (ON): University of Toronto Press; 1949; 373–74.
3.
LandesRG. The Canadian polity: A comparative introduction. Scarborough (ON): Prentice-Hall Canada; 1983.
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LipsetSM. Continental divide: The values and institutions of the United States and Canada. New York (NY): Routledge; 1990.
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NewmanPC. The Canadian revolution: From deference to defiance. Toronto (ON): Penguin Book Canada; 1995.
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GwynR.Nationalism without walls: The unbearable lightness of being Canadian. Toronto (ON): McClelland and Stewart; 1996.
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AdamsM.Sex in snow: Canadian social values at the end of the millennium. Toronto (ON): Viking Penguin; 1997.
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NevitteN.The decline of deference: Canadian value change in cross-national perspective. Peterborough (ON): Broadview Press; 1996.
9.
MassicotteL. Parliament. The show goes on, but the public seems bored. In: BickertonJPGagnonA-G. Canadian politics. 2nd ed. Peterborough (ON): Broadview Press; 1994. I see the petition as an informal referendum.
10.
HelsonHBlakeRRMoutonJS. Petition signing as adjustment to situational and personal factors. Journal of Social Psychology1958; 48: 3.
11.
The Globe and Mail1998 April 22:A1,13.
12.
KidderLH. Seltiz, Wrightsman and Cook's research methods in social relations. New York (NY): Holt, Rinehart and Winston; 1981.
13.
The term “sampling frame” refers to a list of names from which to sample. Forms of sampling frame other than the telephone book include the municipal property taxation assessment enumeration and voters' lists for elections. Five pages from the 1996 Kitchener-Waterloo listings were selected for each of 16 telephone interviewers. Random selection templates were then prepared so that interviewers could draw 10 names each from their own copies of the phone book. The assignment per interviewer thus totalled 50 names.
14.
Survey to get views on local health care. Kitchener-Waterloo Record 1996 November 30:B2.
15.
The main fieldwork was complete by early February and yielded 604 cases, but in May 1997 a follow-up survey was conducted by mailing a reduced, one-page questionnaire to all general sample nonrespondents and non-contacts. With 23 non-traceable names (not in the new phone directory published in the winter of 1997) deleted, 183 questionnaires were mailed. Twenty-nine completions came in and nine proved to be non-deliverable by the post office.
WarrinerKGoyderJGjertsenHHohnerPMcSpurrenK.Charities, no; lotteries, no; cash, yes: Main effects and interactions in a Canadian incentives experiment. Public Opinion Quarterly1996; 60: 542–62.
18.
These and all figures henceforth are from the survey data weighted by household composition and number of listings in the telephone directory.The weight offsets the fact that separate listings for marital or common-law partners in a household would double the odds of that household being selected for the sample.
19.
We might expect 100 percent of petition signers to favour no cuts, but remember that the question is asking about cutting one of the local hospitals, not necessarily St. Mary's.
20.
It is further corroboration of the depth of opinion against a closure that although only a small percentage of refusers (potentially the most hostile to the Save St. Mary's Campaign) to the telephone fieldwork were “converted” with the postal contact, 14 out of the 16 heard from by mail favoured spreading cuts across all Kitchener-Waterloo hospitals, and only one person favoured the megahospital proposal.
21.
Metroline Research Group Inc. Kitchener-Waterloo Record; 1997 March 8:A1,2.
22.
BlakeRJMoutonJSHainJD. Social forces in petition signing. Southwestern Social Science Quarterly1956; 36: 385–90.
23.
DeJongW.Consensus information and the foot-in-the-door effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin1981; 7: 425.
24.
NeimanMGottdienerM.Qualifying initiatives: A heuristic use of data to commend an unexplored stage of direct democracy. Social Science Journal1985; 22: 104.
25.
NeimanMGottdienerM.The relevance of the qualifying stage of initiative politics: The case of petition signing. Social Science Quarterly1982; 63: 587.
