Canadians Don't Trust Politicians
Those Who Seek Elected Office Are Held in Very Low Esteem
Politicians took last place for trustworthiness among 22 professionals in a 2006 poll taken by Leger Marketing of Montreal. Only 14% of those surveyed said they trusted politicians, five percent below the figure for car salespeople. (Firefighters were at the top with 96%, followed by nurses at 95%, farmers at 92%, teachers at 88%, police officers at 81%, judges at 78%, and church representatives at 64%.)
Politicians Can Blame Themselves
Politicians have sunk to this level to a large extent because of their own antics:
- Countless election promises are made only to be broken after the vote;
- MPs can be encouraged to cross the floor and join the party they opposed with the reward of a cabinet position;
- The few who turn out to be common criminals taint the reputations of all; and,
- The behaviour in the House of Commons is worse than anything that would be tolerated in the unruliest classroom.
A Globe and Mail editorial on May 13, 2005 described the non-answers to questions in Question Period, “are drowned out by applause or catcalls, and the Speaker has the thankless job of kindergarten monitor.”
The Power of Negative Advertising
During the January 2006 election campaign Liberal Party ads grossly distorted some quotes of Conservative Stephen Harper and added the tag line “We’re not making this up.”
While some of the quotes were accurate, others were not. One Liberal ad, for example, quoted Mr. Harper as saying, “You won’t recognize Canada when I get through with it.” In fact, Mr. Harper said in 2004, “We can create a country built on solid Conservative values, not on expensive Liberal promises, a country the Liberals wouldn’t even recognize, the kind of country I want to lead.”
The Conservative Party is just as willing to get down in the mud. Within a few weeks of Stephane Dion becoming leader of the Liberal Party, the Tories started running ads portraying him as weak; “Just Not a Leader” they said.
Negative advertising brings politics in general into disrepute.
Mulroney and Schreiber
The inquiry into the Mulroney/Schreiber affair is due to get underway at the end of March 2009. The $300,000 the former Prime Minister accepted from the lobbyist will likely generate more suspicion of politicians among Canadians.
The last time this matter was in the public eye during Parliamentary hearings in the fall of 2007, Kathleen Harris of The Toronto Sun interviewed pollster Nik Nanos. Ms. Harris quoted him as saying, “What we might be seeing is collateral damage from the Schreiber affair, where it’s turning people off politicians in general. Voters are very grumpy right now.
“I think this is not good for democracy. It touches a raw nerve and makes people think there’s really no difference between any politician.”
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