Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Jean Chretien on China and the Olympics CEOs and Business Leaders Back Harper on Human Rights Abuses BDO Dunwoody Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll By COMPAS in Canadian Business For Publication August 28, 2008 COMPAS Inc. Public Opinion and Customer Research August 28, 2008
1.0. Introduction Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien condemns Stephen Harper for a failed China policy failing to attend the Olympic ceremonies, and creating the worst relationship between Canada and China since before John Diefenbaker a half century ago. The CEOs and business leaders on the business panel take Harper s side by an overwhelming margin. A two-thirds majority praises the incumbent for calmly standing up to Beijing on human rights abuses. Less than a fifth perceive Chretien s attack on Harper as having merit. Among panelists with strong opinions on the issues, Harper backers outnumber Chretien backers by 5:1. A majority believe that the former Prime Minister s longtime business associations in China place in him conflict of interest on the issue. The panel s strong backing for Harper over Chretien in the imbroglio has particular significance because the panel is not uniformly favourable to Harper on other issues, especially taxation issues. Panelists views on the entanglement may be seen in light of their general views on the Olympics. They do not see the Olympics as particularly good for business, and they are not of one mind on whether the Olympics spread democratic values or whether the Olympics showcase dictatorships instead. These are the key findings from this past week s Internet survey of CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS panel. The weekly business survey is undertaken for Canadian Business magazine under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP. 2
2.0. Overwhelming Support for Harper over Chretien On three separate questions measuring attitudes towards the Chretien- Harper imbroglio, Harper wins by immense margins, as shown in table 2. The following verbatims provide a sense of panelists sentiments on the issues: Chretien's values are not those of real Canadians, thank goodness. He is self-serving and biased. Not that what Harper did is OK, he should have gone, not to send a message to China, but to support the athletes who have spent years on their training programs. Regarding China and their democratic policies. The fact that the world is seeing something of the country is great. We should not apply double standards, as we do not complain about the positive effect on inflation that importing goods from China has had on the entire world economy. We could all do with less Chretien. There is little doubt that China is a major emerging commercial market. That does not mean that we have to compromise our code of ethics and 'tippy-toe' around China's human rights history, in exchange for economic gain. Chretien is past tense. Canadian prime ministers have rarely attended the opening of the Olympics in past years. I do not subscribe to any notion that Canada's reputation has been adversely affected because Harper did not attend. Some panelists were critical of Harper and supportive of Chretien. But Harper was as apt to be criticized for too limited support for human right as too much: Harper's standing on China human rights is another hypocritical gesture and double standard approach. He is fine to cooperate with regime like Syria and Saudi Arabia on more controversial matters with a horrible human rights 3
background but not with China???!!! Please give me a break! Table 2: (Q2) To what extent do you agree with the following opinions arising from Jean Chretien s attack on Stephen Harper. RANDOMIZE Stephen Harper should be widely praised for calmly standing up to China s human rights abuses against Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong, and other minorities. Chretien s longtime association with major investments associated with the regime in China places him in serious conflict of interest when he speaks on Chinese issues. Chretien was justified in attacking Stephen Harper for creating the worst climate of intergovernmental relations between China and Canada in years. Mean 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DNK 5.1 26 21 20 12 7 7 4 3 5.0 28 19 14 9 6 7 7 9 2.8 6 7 5 12 12 20 32 7 3.0. Ambivalence about the Value of the Olympics The meaning of panelists strong support for Harper over Chretien rests in part on panelists hesitations about the value of the Olympics, as shown in table 4
3. Panelists are not sure that money on the Olympics is money well spent, and they are divided about whether the Olympics further democracy or undermine it: Only half believe that the Olympic games could spread respect for law and democratic values if democratic nations stopped applying a double standard, punishing their own athletes for infractions but allowing the major dictatorships to cheat ; Only half believe that the Olympic games help lawabiding businesses and democratic values by furthering communications among the nations of the world ; By contrast, almost half (42%) believe that the Olympic games undermine law-abiding business and their democratic values as a result of show-casing dictatorships like China and Russia, which break the rules with impunity doping athletes in the past and using under-age gymnasts today ; Meanwhile, fewer than a third believe that Canada should be investing taxpayers money in our Olympic athletes because Canadian businesses do many deals as a result ; and Fewer than a fourth believe that If Canada doubled or tripled its spending on Olympic athletes, the business benefits would rise by at least that amount. 5
Table 3: (Q1) There s debate about the Olympics. To what extent do you agree with the following diverse opinions on a 7 point scale where 1 means disagree strongly and 7, agree strongly. The Olympic games could spread respect for law and democratic values if democratic nations stopped applying a double standard, punishing their own athletes for infractions but allowing the major dictatorships to cheat. The Olympic games help lawabiding businesses and democratic values by furthering communications among the nations of the world. The Olympic games undermine law-abiding business and their democratic values as a result of show-casing dictatorships like China and Russia, who break the rules with impunity doping athletes in the past and using under-age gymnasts today. Canada should be investing taxpayers money in our Olympic athletes because Canadian businesses do many deals as a result. Mean 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DNK 4.4 19 10 21 12 8 13 9 8 4.4 8 17 27 19 12 8 6 3 4.1 13 15 13 15 15 13 11 6 3.5 4 9 17 21 13 17 15 5 6
If Canada doubled or tripled its spending on Olympic athletes, the business benefits would rise by at least that amount. Mean 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DNK 3.2 5 7 11 16 21 17 19 5 The following verbatims provide a nuanced sense of panelist opinion: The Olympic games are more or less irrelevant to the spread of civil society and peace and good will among nations. They are an enormous entertainment industry and can be quite financially rewarding for the few at the top not unlike Hollywood or professional sports which is of course one of the significant drivers for participants. As such I believe any support the games or participants receive should be voluntary, not taken from citizens and residents of a country by force (taxes). There are useful uses of taxes but helping out a privileged subset of society to pursue their private dreams is not one of them. If you want to support something you are free to send money but don t force me to. The Olympic games should not be awarded to nondemocracies. Period. This would help ensure they are not used for political purposes by totalitarian regimes. Let's not lose sight of reality. The democratic countries are fast losing human rights rapidly as our society becomes more security conscious, systemized and institutionalized, becoming more collectively fearful of largely contrived hazards. The less democratic nations are gaining rights but slowly. We must remain alert to the ploy of using external flaws as useful contrasts for imposition of increasingly oppressive legislation at home. This is exactly what Hitler did in 1932-35, with the blessings of the major German commercial interests at that time. 7
The Olympics should reflect as much as possible a sporting attitude and fairplay and be a little less intensive. Sport is recreation for all or at least should be. The games should be kept honest but not be used as political arena. The Olympic movement holds itself out as the world standard in competition and fairness. It has been my experience that they do not do business in the same way. Their expectations of their suppliers is anything but fair and competitive. They will not hesitate to use their dominance and stature to impose unfair pricing and contract conditions on the suppliers. Canada should invest more in its athletes period. It should not be related to potential business deals. 4.0 Methodology The COMPAS web-survey of CEOs and leaders of small, medium, and large corporations was conducted August 20-21, 2008. Respondents constitute an essentially hand-picked panel with a higher numerical representation of small and medium-sized firms. Because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn, the study can be considered more accurate than comparably sized general public studies. In studies of the general public, surveys of 109 are deemed accurate to within approximate 9.4 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The principal and co-investigator on this study are Conrad Winn, Ph.D. and Tamara Gottlieb. 8