Mainstreet Research is a Canadian

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

and polling firm with headquarters in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, and offices in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and Ottawa. The company was founded in 2010 by Quito Maggi, who currently serves as its president. Mainstreet Research conducts regular Canadian national, regional, and municipal public polling and private market and public opinion research. Their data is reported by various media organizations. In a comparison of polling results with election results, Mainstreet was ranked fourth in Canada by polling analyst Philippe J. Fournier.

Polling

Mainstreet Research published its first poll on December 9, 2013. Since then, Mainstreet Research (formerly Mainstreet Technologies) has published hundreds of polls across dozens of elections and in between elections on matters of public policy. A summary of the elections covered by Mainstreet can be found below.

Controversies

The polling firm drew criticism for incorrectly calling the

2017 Calgary municipal election The 2017 Calgary municipal election was held on October 16, 2017, to elect a Mayor of Calgary, mayor, councillors to the Calgary City Council, city council, trustees to the Calgary Board of Education, and trustees to the Calgary Catholic School ...

in polls conducted for

Postmedia Postmedia Network Canada Corp. (also known as Postmedia Network, Postmedia News or Postmedia) is an American-owned Canadian-based media conglomerate consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in Engl ...

. The polls suggested that incumbent Naheed Nenshi was trailing to Bill Smith, a political newcomer, while other pollsters had Nenshi in the lead. A report commissioned after the election by the Market Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) found that there were flaws in the company's polling methods, one of which resulted in the exclusion of

cellphones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

in polling calls. This led to

sampling bias In statistics, sampling bias is a bias (statistics), bias in which a sample is collected in such a way that some members of the intended statistical population, population have a lower or higher sampling probability than others. It results in a b ...

, as younger people tended to have cellphones, but not

landline A landline is a physical telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber from the subscriber's premises to the network, allowing multiple phones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is also referred to as plain old ...

s. It was found that the pollster's attempts to conduct ward-by-ward polling was based on phone numbers linked to postal codes, while cellphones with no such linkage were often dropped. Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi later admitted to "big, big polling failures", and stated that while the company has implemented recommendations from the report, it would have to work to earn back public trust. A similar problem was also reported in the company's polls for the 2019

Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city of about 100,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. "The Harbour City" was previously known as the "Hub City", which was attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating fr ...

provincial by-election, which mispredicted a win for the BC Liberals over the incumbent

BC NDP The New Democratic Party of British Columbia (BC NDP) is a social democratic political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum and is one of the two major parties in British Columbia; since ...

. Christopher Adams, one of the authors of the report, recommended that such small sample polling be halted until a solution to the sampling problem was found, adding that Mainstreet had done well with larger samples such as with provincial or federal elections.

References

{{reflist Market research companies of Canada Public opinion research companies Companies based in Toronto