Political campaigns may be significantly off-base when it comes to the number of people they say are present at campaign rallies across the country, a CBC News investigation shows.
Both the Conservatives and Liberals have held major rallies since the beginning of the federal election, with the Conservatives in particular emphasizing the size of their events.
CBC News’s visual investigations team hand-counted people in images taken at four rallies across the country — Conservative rallies in Surrey, B.C., and near Edmonton, and Liberal events in Toronto and Richmond, B.C.
The investigation, including expert analysis by crowd scientists, shows that the actual number of people attending those rallies was likely far lower than the counts the campaigns published on social media or reported to journalists at the events.
The Conservatives claimed that the Edmonton-area rally was attended by 15,000 people, for example. CBC News counted roughly 1,558 in one panorama photo shared by the campaign. Even assuming that a large number of attendees were missed due to perspective or obstruction, 15,000 is “not possible,” according to G. Keith Still, an expert in crowd dynamics and safety, who is a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk.
CBC News asked Still to analyze the events. His hand-counts were similar to our team’s for all four events. Still noted that hand-counts carry a margin of error of five per cent.
For comparison, Winnipeg’s NHL arena, the Canada Life Centre, has a maximum capacity of 15,321.
Similarly, the Liberals said their rally in Richmond had 2,000 people in the main room. CBC News’s count, corroborated by Still, puts the number closer to 800. The manual count, as with the other rallies, was done by dividing the images into grids and tallying the heads visible.
Crowd sizes are often difficult to estimate, and hand-counts are not perfect. CBC News’s count could be lower than the real number of people in the room, as attendees may not have been counted for a variety of reasons: They were behind the camera or otherwise not in the shot, they were obscured by a sign, another person or an object, or the perspective of the image may have meant they were hidden. To address these limitations, campaign photos of the rallies were compared with videos and images, from social media, showing other perspectives so that the count included most of those present.
Manually counting heads is the most reliable way of determining crowd size, according to Still.
“But for that you need a good high angle, good clear lines of sight, reasonably good lighting, and then a lot of time to actually count the heads,” he said.
Chronologically, the first event examined was the Conservative rally on March 27 in Surrey. The party claimed 5,500 attendees.
CBC News counted approximately 1,522 in a picture posted by the campaign.
The photograph is in many ways ideal for counting: it’s high definition and captures much of the area from a high angle. But some attendees were on the venue’s mezzanine (from which the photograph appears to have been taken) and were not counted, while some could have been missed in the corners of the room.
5,500 patriotic Canadians. <br><br>United in Surrey.<br><br>Under our proud flag 🇨🇦.<br><br>Let’s put Canada First—for a change: <a href=”https://t.co/eIy7PDtCaB”>https://t.co/eIy7PDtCaB</a> <a href=”https://t.co/2Iqbb5UfTG”>pic.twitter.com/2Iqbb5UfTG</a>
Even so, the hand-count would have needed to miss three times as many people as were seen in the image for the official count to be accurate.
The next rally examined was the Liberal gathering in Toronto on March 28. Liberal officials told reporters there were 1,800 people in the room.
CBC News counted 710 in a composite image created from a photo posted by the campaign and stills from video of the event.
Again, some people were likely missed because of the limited perspective. But there would need to have been more than twice as many people present, but not counted, for the campaign’s count to be accurate.
Next, the Conservative campaign said its rally near Edmonton had more than 15,000 people.
Here, the size of the crowd and the space made the panorama shot posted by the campaign more difficult to analyze than others, and CBC News was able to count 1,558 people.
That said, by examining other footage, the team identified three pockets of people that it missed, and poor video quality made it impossible to count them. Even so, those groups do not account for more than 10,000 missing attendees.
Still says he counted 1,772 people.
The campaign’s tally is some 10 times higher, he notes. “It’s not possible.”
For the Liberal rally in Richmond, CBC News analyzed footage showing an alternate perspective and matched attendees near the back of the room to the campaign photo, establishing that most of the crowd was captured. The manual count, corroborated by Still, put the number of attendees closer to 756.
The party said 2,000 people were in the main room.
Footage from <a href=”https://twitter.com/PierrePoilievre?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PierrePoilievre</a> rally in Edmonton. 15,000 strong <br><br>Change is on the way. 🇨🇦🇨🇦 <a href=”https://t.co/Ny1PhoxJAM”>pic.twitter.com/Ny1PhoxJAM</a>
The Conservative campaign said in a statement that “supposed ‘crowd scientists'” consulted for this investigation “are very clearly mistaken” — adding that the party “counts RSVPs, as well as those entering the venue.”
The party did not answer follow-up questions about how it reconciles RSVP numbers and counts at the venue, nor did it directly respond to a request for comment on CBC News’s manual counting. The party did point to an RCMP estimate that the rally near Edmonton had between 9,000 and 12,000 people.
The RCMP says that number was a “general estimate” from the detachment in Leduc, Alta., and was “based on observations from members on scene.”
In a statement, the Liberal Party said it has been “maxing out capacity of event spaces” with “record-breaking attendance at campaign events across the country.”
The party did not respond to a follow-up question which noted that the maximum capacity of the Richmond rally’s room is 1,100 people — even less in some arrangements, and far less than the Liberals’ claim of 2,000 attendees.
Neither campaign provided specific evidence for how they came to their crowd counts.
Poilievre is asked if rally ‘size matters’
It’s not unusual for crowd numbers to be “inflated to fit the political will,” Still said.
“What’s important is that these are well-attended rallies by people that are supporters of whichever party they’re dealing with. The actual numbers need to be accurate. But one politician boasting they’ve got higher numbers than the other and vice versa — what’s the point?”
Still says images of rallies out by campaigns are designed to show a packed crowd close to the politician — the centre of attention.
“What would look better for PR purposes — packed area, crowds waiting outside, or the same number of people in a much larger space, but spread out?”
“In summary, events typically scale the room to fit the anticipated numbers.”
Analysts have also told CBC News that crowd sizes have little correlation with electoral success.
