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CALGARY — It’s no secret Canadians take a generally dismal view of politicians: They’re often perceived as disingenuous, incompetent, possibly corrupt.

According to a study released last week by the Manning Foundation, politicians don’t think any more highly of themselves — or their peers.

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Carleton University professor André Turcotte — who surveyed 162 current and former politicians — found they rated their own understanding of most policy issues as dismal.

For example, most of those surveyed rated the economy as the issue that concerns them most.

However, on a scale of zero to ten, respondents gave the provincial and federal governments a mean score of only about five in terms of their ability to provide solutions on economic issues, with 17% giving those governments a score of zero.

They thought barely more of their colleagues: When asked to rate the overall performance of politicians in general, they gave their peers a mean score of 3.95 out of ten. And the longer they had been in politics, the more cynical they seemed to be. For example, more than one out of five of the politicians listed their peers’ top competency as “being elected,” a belief that was supported by their personal experience.