VoteCompass reveals economy and housing top of mind for B.C. voters

B.C.'s economy and housing market go hand in hand — and according to people in British Columbia, they're No. 1 and 2 in terms of important election issues. 

That's according to results from VoteCompass, CBC's online voter engagement survey, which released the findings a week into an election campaign that has been neck and neck between the B.C. Liberals and NDP. 

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Overall, 22.7 per cent of respondents said the most important issue for them this election was "Economy", followed by "Housing" at 15.5 per cent, "Education" at 12.7 per cent and and "Environment" at 10 per cent. 

"Healthcare" was at 9.8 per cent, and no other category had more than 5 per cent of respondents select it.

Overall, the economy was the top issue for Liberal supporters, decided voters, men, voters 35-years-old and older, and people making more than $60,000 a year. 

Housing was the top issue for NDP supporters, women, people who live in Metro Vancouver north of the Fraser River, religious people who aren't Catholic or Protestant and people making less than $60,000 a year. 

Education was the top issue for people between the ages of 18 and 34. 

There were also significant differences in how men and women answered the question about what the most important election issue was for them.

Men were almost twice as likely to list the economy, while women were almost twice as likely to list education, the environment, or health care.    

There was also a significant difference in how different age groups viewed issues of importance: those 55-years-old and above listed the economy and health care as their top priorities, while those between 18 and 34 years old listed education and housing as their top two priorities respectively. 

The full report can be found here.

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in British Columbia exclusively by CBC News. The findings are based on 20,656 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from April 11 to April 18, 2017. Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. Vote Compass data have been weighted by geography, gender, age, educational attainment, occupation, religion, income and language to ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the actual population of British Columbia according to census data and other population estimates.