Samuel Kirz compares the trustworthiness of MPs to the trustworthiness of the jobs that MPs used to hold.
Samuel Kirz compares the trustworthiness of MPs to the trustworthiness of the jobs that MPs used to hold.
A few things stand out. Fewer than a third of the MPs in this sample had a pre-political profession that was deemed trustworthy by more than 50% of Canadians. On its face, that’s a pretty damning evaluation of the people in Ottawa.
However, a closer analysis of the numbers reveals that there’s one profession with a disproportionately large (and negative) effect on the sample. Lawyer is the most common pre-political profession, and 75% of Canadians consider lawyers untrustworthy. If lawyers were removed from the sample, we’d be left with 53 MPs from an untrustworthy profession and 46 MPs from a trustworthy profession. That’s almost a one-to-one ratio of liars to truth tellers. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than our current standing.
Nick Taylor-Vaisey mapped the pre-politics professions of MPs earlier this month.