Those folks we send to Ottawa to collect big paycheques, pension perks and plenty of television face time are irrelevant, untrustworthy, socialist, bumbling incompetents.
Does that shock you?
It shouldn't because that's how Canadians described federal political parties in a new poll that asked participants to pretend the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals, Greens and the Bloc were people and characterize their personalities.
The bad mouthing hit the Conservatives with the label of "untrustworthy" topping the list at 14.4 per cent.
But here's a stunner, roughly 12.9 per cent said the Harperites were, well, "conservative."
The Nanos Research survey released Saturday found the NDP's personality to be - wait for it - "socialist" at 13.3 per cent. The saviour here for the socialists was the fact 10.2 per cent thought they were "caring."
That's good news for the New Democrats' resume. It's certainly better than what people thought about the Liberals.
They were labeled as "bad" or "incompetent" by 18.4 per cent, while another 16.2 per cent called them "untrustworthy."
It's interesting to note that some respondents had what might be called "strong" opinions about their politicians. Those who gave the pollsters a litany of expletives saw their responses filed under the bad or incompetent category.
The Green party, with one seat in Parliament, was seen more along the lines of Kermit the Frog as "eco-friendly" and "green" at 16.7 per cent.
The Greens won't be running for high school president any time soon either since 14.7 per cent called them "naïve" and another 11.1 per cent "not well known." The party was also called "hippie and radical" by 4.5 per cent.
But the best is always saved for last in popularity contests and beauty pageants.
The Bloc Quebecois - reduced to a handful of seats in the last federal election – took another drubbing with 15.4 per cent of those surveyed in Quebec calling it "useless" and for some reason, "separatist" at 11.7 per cent.
But other top voter getters for the Bloc included "aggressive, untrustworthy, selfish and boring."
About 3.4 per cent of those surveyed called them "French."
Aside from all the sticks and stones, those surveyed also had some positive things to say about the country's federal parties.
About 9.1 per cent called the Conservatives a "good choice" and another 6.4 per cent "trustworthy."
Even though "caring" was the second choice for the NDP, 10 per cent of those surveyed also thought they were "good."
Other words used to describe the Liberals included "competent, progressive, strong and powerful."
The Nanos survey is based on a random sample of 1,002 Canadians conducted online between April 13 and 14. The data was weighted using the latest census data.
