The press release from Ispos Reid about their latest poll tries to emphasize the positive news — Canadians have an increasing awareness of some historical facts about our country’s military past — but the overall news is embarrassingly awful: Canadians know squat about some of the most basic facts of their country’s history.
The Dominion Institute, which sponsored the survey, screams out the bad news in a banner at its Web site: Only half of Canadians can name our first Prime Minister.
Here’s some of the other dismal results, which my colleague Craig Oliver, reported on our newscast yesterday:
- Who was Canada’s first francophone Prime Minister?
- A. Pierre Elliott Trudeau (27 % picked Trudeau)
- B. Wilfrid Laurier (56 % got it right)
- C. Rene Levesque (13 % thought Levesque was PM once)
- Who was Canada’s first Prime Minister?
- Macdonald – 46%
- Laurier – 3 %
- Trudeau – 2%
- Don’t know – 37 %
- What year did Confederation occur?
- 1867 – 26 %
- 1918 – 1 %
- 1960 – 1 %
- 1950 – 1 %
- Other – 43 %
- Don’t know – 29 %