CITIZEN OPINION SURVEY

This year, 3,757 citizens added their voices to Victoria’s Vital Signs by assigning grades and assessing their experience with various facets of life in each of the 12 key issue areas. They were also asked questions about quality of life, their perceptions and experience with equity and inclusion, as well as personal impacts from COVID-19.

The online survey, conducted by Leger, is based on a ‘self-selected’ respondent population. The survey was open to all interested individuals in Greater Victoria, and survey participants volunteered to take part in the survey. Therefore, the results should be considered representative of ‘interested Victorians’ and may not be representative of the Victoria population overall. For a total sample of 3,757, at a 95% confidence level, data is accurate +/- 1.68%, 19 times out of 20. Most market research involves much smaller samples of around 400 and a margin of error + or – 5%, 19 times out of 20. 400 surveys were completed via a research panel and 3,357 through the open online link.

An invitation to participate in the survey was promoted through many websites, social media channels, online newsletters and in local media coverage.

GRADING

Citizen grading of the issue areas is based on a report card scale:

A = Excellent, stay the course

B = Good, but improvements could be made

C = Average performance, suggest additional effort be made to address these issues

D = Below average performance, additional work is required

F = Failure, immediate action is required

A full report on the results of the survey and its analysis is available on the Foundation’s website. With this year’s theme of equity and inclusion, a segmentation analysis of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) respondents has been done on the survey results. Best practices for addressing different ethnic groups within research is still being developed. However, due to small sample sizes, ethnicities other than Caucasian were aggregated to form the BIPOC category.

REGIONAL DATA

To complement citizen opinion data, the Victoria Foundation curates secondary data on a range of indicators from Statistics Canada and other institutional sources. Through our Vital Community Network, we consult local experts from a range of Greater Victoria organizations who help us identify meaningful indicators. Ultimately, the availability and accessibility of reliable data determines if we can report on a given indicator. Sponsors do not influence the indicator data in any way.

A note about geography: Greater Victoria is an umbrella term that applies to different geographical areas, depending on the indicator. It can refer to the capital region, Victoria Census Metropolitan Area

or South Vancouver Island Health Service Delivery Area. For a full list of indicators, data sources and geographies used in this report, visit victoriafoundation.ca.