The political mood of Canadians "has turned quite sour," an annual poll has found.

Feelings about the performance of the federal government, direction of the country, federal-provincial relations and Canada's reputation were more negative in December 2013 than any other year since 2007, the poll of 1,000 Canadian adults found.

When asked how they would describe the performance of the federal government this year, 38% said "very poor," more than double the 16% who said the same in 2012, while 18% said it was somewhat poor. About a quarter (26%) said the government's performance was very good, or somewhat good.

Nanos Research, which conducted the poll with the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said the Senate controversy was part of the reason "the Canadian political mood has turned quite sour."

More than half of respondents (55%) said Canada is moving in the wrong direction as a country, well above the 27% who said the same in 2012, and the 38% who said it in 2010 when the global economy was just beginning to bounce back from recession.

Federal-provincial relations didn't improve in 2013 according to 40% of respondents, well above the 13-15% who chose this option between 2007 and 2012.

Perhaps the most striking response was to the question about Canada's global reputation — 45% said it hasn't improved, a 37 percentage point jump over the 8% who answered the same way in 2012.

The random online and phone survey was conducted Dec. 14 and 16. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.