D9

John Wishart

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It's Canada Day as I write this column. I'm alone in the newsroom, save for the hum of the fluorescent lights and the occasional static crackle and voice from the police scanner.

It's the perfect time to get some work done, stuff that just can't be crammed into the normal eight hour work-day.

On the way into the office, I walked past our flag pole, the Maple Leaf at half-mast in honour of former Gov-Gen. Romeo LeBlanc, who was given a wonderful send-off yesterday by hundreds of mourners at a state funeral in Memramcook.

Canada Day is always a good time to reflect on what it means to be Canadian. I think Romeo was a good role model for us, a man of humble beginnings who was learned, enlightened, compassionate, and outgoing without giving in to excess. He was the type of man equally at home at a festival in a small Acadian village or dining in grand ballrooms with heads of state.

Unfortunately, it seems we don't know much about what it means to be Canadian or what Canada has meant to the world over the past 142 years.

A national survey released this week showed that only 21 per cent of us actually knew Canada was born in 1867. I wonder what the corresponding percentage would be if Americans were asked the birthdate of their country? The Canadian poll answers ranged from 287 years to 30 years, meaning Canada was formed either 50 years before the Acadian Expulsion or just about the time I graduated from high school.

Only 20 per cent knew that Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949. Other answers included 1817, 1832 and 2002. One respondent suggested the Newfs joined the rest of us just after the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

There were other shocking results in the poll: only 42 per cent of respondents knew Canada had three territories. Only one-in-three people knew who our previous prime minister was (Paul Martin). Twenty-two per cent said Stephen Harper (wishful thinking, perhaps . . .), 18 per cent said Jean Chretien, a few said Kim Campbell (huh?) and one in five couldn't name anyone.

That benign ignorance is all around us. A co-worker stopped me a week ago -- red-faced and quizzical. We are planning a special section to celebrate New Brunswick's 225th anniversary. But if N.B. is 225 years old, how can Canada be only 142 years old?, she asked.

A three-minute lecture on British colonies and Confederation cleared up her confusion, but she is a smart woman and I am sure she is not alone.

What I'm not sure about is if our collective ignorance is due to our laid-back nature or shortcomings in our school system.

It's been more than 35 years, but I can still remember a Grade 6 social studies project in which I built a map of all 50 U.S. states, marked their capitals and their chief export. I can still likely rhyme off 40 or so state capitals without breaking a sweat.

But do you think I can remember much about the Canadian history I took in school? Was it because our more peaceful evolution pales in excitement to the blood and revolution of our American cousins?

Much has been made of former Education Minister Kelly Lamrock's edict that all schools will start their school days by singing O Canada. Instead of worrying about whether to sing our national anthem daily, perhaps we should be looking into how to beef up our dose of Canadian history in the classrooms.

There are plenty of exciting chapters in Canada's history: from our aboriginal ancestors to the first French and English settlers; from the battle for control of our land between the French and British, to the creation of our Eastern provinces to expansion in the West; from development of our social safety net to our emergence as a broker of peace as a free nation in the 20th century . . . there are engaging stories to tell.

Our friends south of the 49th parallel are drilled on U.S. history from Grade 1.

They learn to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and know the U.S. Constitution inside-out. Their love for their history was apparent during a trip I took earlier this year to the cradle of their democracy, Washington, D.C.

I was the only Canadian in a group of 20 newspaper editors from across the U.S. One of our sessions was at a place called The Freedom Forum, a think-tank devoted to the protection and promotion of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment was the first 'ah-ha' U.S. citizens had that it might be a good idea to enshrine protection of free speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press in their most sacred document.

There was a quiz at the end of the session and the team I was on did surprisingly well, even if it was weighed down with that Canadian guy.

After the session, I was talking to the Freedom Forum's executive-director and he said he wasn't surprised by my knowledge of the U.S. Constitution. Outsiders often score well on this quiz, he said, because the U.S. has done such a good job of exporting its history to the rest of the world.

The same can't be said about Canada. I doubt I would score as well in a quiz on our own Canadian Constitution.

The same also can't be said of Americans' knowledge of Canada. In the days leading up to Canada Day this week, most of the American tourists on Parliament Hill thought that flag at half-mast was in honour of Michael Jackson.

You know Jackson . . . that beloved vice-regal representative known for wearing a white glove and moonwalking across the marble floors of Rideau Hall?

* City Views appears daily, written by various members of our staff. John Wishart is assistant managing editor of the Times & Transcript. His column appears every Saturday.