Survey Shows Most Vancouverites Believe Committed Agitators Caused Riot

NRG Research Group and Peak Communicators completed 400 random telephone surveys in the City of Vancouver on June 20th on public’s beliefs concerning last week’s hockey riot. We will never know the real reason why Vancouver rioted.

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”.

Most highly rated as responsible for the riot (8.7 out of 10) were committed agitators intending to make trouble after the hockey game. Crowd alcohol consumption was the second highest rated factor as responsible for the riot (7.6 out of 10). 6.6 of 10 was the responsibility rating for young people from other parts of the Lower Mainland.

Other findings saw a responsibility rating of 6.3 of 10 for people caught up in the crowd momentum and 6.1 of 10 for curious onlookers who did not leave when trouble started. The City of Vancouver, the Vancouver police, the BC Government, the CBC and Vancouver Canucks were all ranked, in descending order as less responsible than the crowd.

Responsibility rating on a scale from 0 to 10 for
Mean out of 10

Committed agitators who intended to make trouble after the game? 8.7
Excess alcohol consumption? 7.6
Young people from other parts of the lower mainland? 6.6
Crowd members who just got caught up in the moment? 6.3
Curious onlookers who did not leave when trouble started? 6.1
The City of Vancouver? 4.9
The Vancouver Police Department? 4.4
The Government of BC? 3.7
The CBC is for showing the game outside on large screens? 3.2
The Vancouver Canucks? 1.8

The results also show that most Vancouverites (81 per cent) feel that last week’s hockey riot will either make Vancouver a better place to live (10 per cent) or not make any difference over the long run (71 per cent). Only 18 per cent said it would make Vancouver a worse place to live. However, 78 per cent of respondents believe the effect of the riot will be to harm Vancouver’s reputation in the rest of Canada and the world.

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

Image: Maurice Li