Aeroplan Apologizes for Survey Q’s About National Purity and Male Superiority

Aeroplan member Lacey Willmott complained to the company after taking a survey last week, which is alleged to have contained a number of inflammatory questions. The poll was carried out on behalf of Aeroplan by CROP, a market research company that had been hired to improve the loyalty plan.

Aeroplan has issued an apology after one of its members said that she found the questions contained within a recent online survey to be offensive, the CBC reports. Lacey Willmott contacted the company last week after she completed the poll, saying that she was “alarmed and extremely concerned” by its contents.

In addition to asking members about their habits on shopping and brands, it also appears that the 80-question poll contained questions that some found to be controversial. According to the outlet, “The survey included controversial questions that asserted immigration was harmful, suggested males were superior and that traditional marriage was the only way to form a family.”

Willmott not only found the questions to be inflammatory in tone, but raised her concerns about how the data collected would be utilized. “Is this actually for Aeroplan, or is Aeroplan collecting this data for someone else?” Willmott queried.

Most of the 80 questions asked about Aeroplan members’ thoughts on shopping or brands. Others asked them to agree or disagree on social topics such as:

• Overall, there is too much immigration. It threatens the purity of the country.
• Getting married and having children is the only real way of having a family.
• The father of the family must be master in his own house.
• Whatever people say, men have a certain natural superiority over women, and nothing can change this.

It transpired that the survey was being carried out on behalf of Aeroplan by CROP, a Montreal market research firm. Aimia, the owner of Aeroplan, had hired CROP to make improvements to Aeroplan, the loyalty program used by Air Canada as well as a number of other airline and retail partners. Aimia has admitted that it did not properly review the contents of the survey before it was sent to members.

In an email to HuffPost, Christa Poole, Aeroplan’s senior manager for external communications, said, “We apologize to any members who were offended by the questions in the survey, which we had not properly reviewed internally.”

However, Poole also observed that the questions within the survey appeared to issue from “a survey on evolving Canadian values”, which CROP has been running for three decades.

Alain Giguere, CROP president, defended the survey, saying, “This series of questions is always preceded by a warning explaining that these are questions about the personal values of the respondent and that they may appear shocking, but they serve to understand who you are as a person. We did not make an exception with Aeroplan.”

He added, “I think this story has taken an extremely sad turn. It’s Aeroplan-bashing.”

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