Question #1 Which of the following four choices best reflects why 40 Vancouver prostitutes died, when so many in positions of authority could have prevented their murders?

Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh who was responsible for law and order, the courts, and provision of warrants for police departments		33.10 %
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen and City Council who had knowledge of the missing women and political authority over the Vancouver police deparment		15.40 %
Vancouver City Police Department who were well aware that women were going missing from the downtown eastside, and who failed to take proper steps to protect them		31.72 %
Coquitlam law enforcement who failed to properly investigate the 'pig-farm' between 1997-2000		19.77 %

Question #2 Currently, a Port Coquitlam man, Willie Picton is charged with the murders of these Vancouver women, based on evidence found at his pig-farm in Port Coquitlam. When his trial was concluded, should the BC government in your opinion, strike a Royal Commission to investigate what exactly went wrong, leading ultimately to the deaths of these women?

Yes		82.76 %
No		14.71 %

Question #3 If any government agencies or institutions are determined to be sufficiently negligent to be seen by any reasonable person to have contributed to the deaths of the 40 women, should the families of the murdered women be properly financially compensated by those government agencies or institutions?

Yes		95.17 %
No		4.14 %

Commentary

Obviously this survey has some scientific imperfections. However, any inherent imperfections are relatively minor compared with the general response and sentiment provided by the group involved in the survey. Some of the biases include (1) our ‘charge’ that it has become increasingly more difficult for police officers to obtain search warrants, (2) the language used to describe each choice, (3) the mention of specific names including former Attorney General and current federal Health Care Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, and former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen, against more ‘generic’ name labels such as Vancouver Police Department and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Clearly, Ujjal Dosanjh is more popular in his constituency than outside of it. He is the current federal Health Minister and this coupled with the fact that many respondents who selected (a) believe the justice system is a mess, and Dosanjh was likely part of the problem.

Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen drew few specific comments, likely because he was the Mayor of Vancouver, and few, if any of these respondents may have lived in Vancouver while he was Mayor. Nevertheless, Vancouver City Council is the direct authority over the Vancouver City Police, and as a consequence drew some of the ire of the respondents.

Vancouver City Police did not do well. Their poor result in this survey is connected to the fact that the prostitutes went missing from Vancouver, and to poor public perception as well. The well publicized beating death of a man (Berg) caught in the act of a home invasion, the beatings of ‘troublemaker-criminal’ types and Stanley Park, and the Guns and Roses riot have given Vancouver Police (fairly or unfairly) a bad name. One respondent indicated that the Vancouver Police were “particularly awful when they beat that gay man to death in Stanley Park”. No such act every took place, however many people only view the news superficially, and if you are in the headlines in a negative way when people are injured or killed, mistakes in pubic perception can happen more easily. The Vancouver Police Department needs some public relations help. Get a civilian to do some of your communications work. Police are trained to be the way they are, without emotion etc., which is fine for the job they are supposed to do, but it comes off very stiff in the media.

The Coquitlam Royal Canadian Mounted Police do not seem to suffer from the same perception problems as the Vancouver Police do. Certainly they have not been confronted with the same difficulties as the Vancouver Police have of late. Those respondents in this survey who chose the Coquitlam R.C.M.P. are ‘freaked out’ that the women, who they know died at the Port Coquitlam pig-farm, may have been murdered right under the noses of the Coquitlam R.C.M.P.

All respondents seem to think that a Royal Commission should be struck, however those respondents who rejected the idea, indicated that it was unlikely that any good would come of it.

People in this survey are all in tune with accountability, and believe that when a citizen is harmed or wronged by the government, the government should properly compensate the victim(s), in this case the families of the murdered Vancouver women.