News Release: New Poll Reveals a Shift in Riot Blame

Vancouver B.C. – October 5, 2011 – Three months after Vancouver’s hockey riot, a new poll finds respondents are placing an increasing amount of blame on the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Department. The City of Vancouver’s responsibility rating increased by 16 per cent; rising from 4.9 in June to 5.7 in September. The level of blame directed at the Vancouver Police Department also increased by 16 per cent.

NRG Research Group and Peak Communicators completed 400 random telephone surveys in the City of Vancouver between September 22^nd and 25^th concerning the public’s beliefs on last June’s hockey riot. The same questions were repeated from a similar survey conducted a week after the riot.

Respondents rated different organizations or groups on their level of responsibility for the riot. The top five responses all related to the crowd that gathered to view the game with respondents rating responsibility for the riot from 0 to 10, with 0 “Not at all Responsible” and 10 “Totally Responsible”.

“Respondents to the phone survey were not given an opportunity to express the reason for their ratings, but we would assume these changing numbers reflect the findings of the Vancouver riot report and the ongoing news coverage that has taken place on the riots over the summer months,” says Tim Chan, Associate Vice President, NRG Research Group.

Committed agitators intending to make trouble after the hockey game were again cited as the most highly responsible for the riot (8.6 out of 10). Crowd alcohol consumption was the second highest factor (7.8 out of 10). Seven out of 10 was the responsibility rating for young people from other parts of the Lower Mainland.

The most sizable change downward in the findings saw a responsibility rating of 5.8 of 10 for curious onlookers who did not leave when trouble started. This was 5 per cent lower or 0.3 less than the findings three months ago.

In the June survey, 78 per cent of respondents believed the effect of the riot would damage Vancouver’s reputation in the rest of Canada and the world. Now, 90 days later only 68 per cent of respondents feel that way, a significant drop from June.

Results of this survey are representative of the population, plus or minus 5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

NRG Research Group is a leading Canadian public affairs and market research company, with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Winnipeg.

Peak Communicators is the largest independent full-service PR agency in Western Canada with a specialty in media relations, communication strategy, media training and digital media.

For more information contact:

Tim Chan/Brian Owen
NRG Research Group
Ph: 604 676-5652
bowen@nrgresearchgroup.com
tchan@nrgresearchgroup.com

Ross Sullivan/Michael Lowry
Peak Communicators
Ph: 604 689-5559
rsullivan@peakco.com
mlowry@peakco.com