Canadians really like nurses and doctors, not big on politicians and car salespeople: poll

If you’re looking to have your confirmation bias vindicated, the cliché remains true: Canadians still don’t like politicians or car salespeople all that much.

A new poll, conducted annually by research firm Insights West, shows more than four out of five Canadians hold positive views of health-care professionals (nurses at 92 per cent, doctors at 84 per cent), as well as scientists (89 per cent), farmers (88 per cent), veterinarians (88 per cent), architects (87 per cent), teachers (85 per cent), engineers (84 per cent), accountants (81 per cent), accountants (81 per cent) and dentists (81 per cent).

READ MORE: Most Canadians say they have trust in traditional news media: Ipsos poll

Losing out are the country’s political class: politicians are the least-liked professionals with only 24 per cent of Canadians saying they hold positive views of them, beating out car salespeople (28 per cent) for last place.

The breakdown in political trust cuts across generational and gender lines: 58 per cent of those who said they had positive impressions of politicians were female, while those aged 18-34 (26 per cent) trust politicians more than those aged 35-54 (23 per cent) and 55+ (22 per cent).

Pollsters, who have been criticized internationally in the last year for blunders in the Brexit referendum, U.S. presidential election and U.K. general election but who have made few major missteps in Canada, are the third least liked of 27 professions that survey respondents were polled about, with 34 per cent of Canadians saying they held a positive impression of them.

Over two-thirds of Canadians hold positive impressions of seven other professions: police officers (76 per cent), auto mechanics (74 per cent), psychiatrists (73 per cent), military officers (73 per cent), judges (72 per cent), athletes (71 per cent) and actors and artists (68 per cent).

Despite some concerns about a crisis of trust in the media industry, 62 per cent of respondents said they had a positive impression of journalists, a four per cent improvement from the same survey last year. Priests and ministers (59 per cent) and building contractors (54 per cent) also received positive impressions from a majority of respondents, while lawyers (50 per cent), realtors and real estate agents (50 per cent) and bankers (50 per cent) all received half.

Insights West conducted its survey online in late May and early June, with a representative sample of 1,257 Canadians weighted in the final data according to age, gender and region. Its margin of error is 2.8 per cent.