Canadians dont know Jack...
I guess I have discovered a flaw in my own personal nature. Everytime I hear someone slamming Canadians about something, I have to find an excuse or reason as to why it is and put a nice spin on it to make Canadians come out better than they are. I could have been a spin doctor, and the greatest challenge of all would have been trying to make the Liberal gov't actually appear competant and uncorrupt. But, that aside, I came across this article (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070629/citizenship_poll_070629/20070629?hub=Canada) saying that the majority of Canadians would fail the immigration entrance exam whereas 70% of immigrants to Canada have passed. Now, I have to stand up and make excuses. why? because I obviously have a flawed and weak self esteem and ego.
I wouldnt mind finding the demographics of the said test and find out more. By the bottom information in the above article, it states that the people took 1005 immigrants not born in Canada, and also phone interviewed 1005 Canadian born citizens. Now, from what I remember, unless you are really interested in history or politics, Canadians really dont take any higher education over the earlier grades. Excluding my Canadian history class in university (mandatory for my degree), I think my last class in anything Canadian historical or social studies wise was back in grade 7 in Social Studies. I am going to make an educated guess and say that anyone who has a phone in their name, at home, who would take time away from their life to do a test like this would be in the range of 20+. Why? I would say that a 15 year old these days with a private line to their room would be listed but what 15 year old playing xbox/Wii or any of those other games would actually hit pause long enough to do a phone test when they get that sort of stuff at school, which they probably arent too happy doing for a reward of grades. A 20+, on the other hand, might be interested in how much they remember from their grade school days after watching one too many episodes of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". So, a 20+ year old would probably have taken classes in the info that they are asking about 7-10 years ago, and in that time they have learned 5 other grades worth of material, learned how to make the perfect bong from an apple, how to sneak the car out of the drive way to get to a bush party and get it back without daddy kicking their asses, hopefully gotten into university/college, gotten at least 1 or more jobs, gone through interview processes and on and on and on. The amount of information being introduced to a regular person is mind boggling so in the end some information might just have to be put aside and forgotten to make room for others. Let's face it, if you had the choice of retaining one type of information in your head and one of those tidbits was going to help you land a job in the electrical field that would pay you $1,500/month after taxes OR remembering what the three responsibilities that Canadians hold according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada is, which is gonna get dumped first? The only time a natural born Canadian might want to retain that sort of trivia information is if it pertains to the job and can make a living. Other than that, you might as well remember the trivia information of how many tines does the maple leaf have on the flag. Interesting, but useless info.
Immigrants, on the other hand, would have learned that information not too long ago, and if they did learn it long ago, chances are they probably learned it when they were adults and didnt have to have the competition of "remember how to make the perfect bong hit OR remember Canadian political trivia" that born Canadians did in their youth. Canadian trivia all of a sudden took higher importance to learn because they didnt pass the test, they dont become citizens and cant stay here to bring over the rest of their family to live a life of freedom that they were probably denied back in their homeland. What happens if a born Canadian doesnt pass social studies? they take shop class and pick up the credits and graduate or dont graduate and live off mommy and daddy in freedom land for the rest of their lives. No real threat there.
As for the connection between the lack of Canadian trivia information being connected with Canadian apathy for voting and social awareness. I think it is more a case of the gov't being responsible. I mean, with all due respects to the Conservative gov't these days, the gov't powers are basically a farce. There really is no problem solving going on these days on parliament hill to really make a better life. It all seems to be in a fashion of political mud slinging back and forth without actually looking at the problem. When the party isnt in power, most of their efforts and money is being spent on trying to prove that the party in power isnt doing their job and are slacking and wasting tax payers money. While the party in power spends the majority of their time, effort and money trying to defend their positions and only doing a little bit to help the people of the country. So, why vote for any particular party when the end result is the same. Win and waste our money slinging mud on the opposition, or lose and waste our money slinging money at the majority. In the end, the Canadian tax payer loses. Natural born Canadians have figured this war on parliament hill long ago and just have given up and let the morons battle it out, while those immigrants that just came over have this illusion that the parliament powers are actually doing something good for the people. If anything I would love to poll immigrants and mark their length of stay in Canada and measure their personal belief on how much they think the gov't is effective or not. I wouldnt be surprised if there was a direct correlation showing the longer you stay in Canada and learn about actual politics and living in the system and the lower voting or social participation.
It's time we learned our lines
By Licia Corbella (Edmonton Sun)
"O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command."
Familiar words, eh?
Well, at least they should be. Those are the opening lines to Canada's national anthem -- a hymn that has been sung in this country for more than 120 years.
According to a Dominion Institute poll released yesterday, only 58% of Canadians could recite those first two lines.
Apparently, just 16% of those polled could name the four provinces that formed Canada in 1867 -- Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That's a decline of six percentage points in 10 years.
Oh, Canada! How truly sad!
What's curious is immigrants scored higher than born Canadians on the 21-question test, indicating in part the exam they are required to take prior to being granted citizenship infuses them with a knowledge of their adopted country.
Rudyard Griffiths, who co-founded the Dominion Institute 10 years ago, says we "are fast becoming a nation of amnesiacs who lack basic knowledge about the country's past, its democratic institutions and practices and the physical geography of Canada."
Why is this important? Well, another study by the Association for Canadian Studies clearly shows the more knowledge a citizen has of Canada, the more involved that citizen is in public life and the more likely they are to vote, volunteer and have trust and confidence in our leaders and our country on the whole.
The Dominion Institute has two recommendations to improve this collective amnesia that leads to cynicism. It's calling on all premiers and ministers of education to organize a national citizenship exam for all high school students and it's calling on the feds to create a new passport program that would provide applicants with the opportunity to volunteer to take the citizenship exam when renewing or applying for their passport. That's a great start. But how about actually teaching our kids about their country in school?
Tomorrow marks our "glorious and free" country's 140th birthday.
The closing line of our anthem states: "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."
Can we really stand on guard for something we know so little about?
I wouldnt mind finding the demographics of the said test and find out more. By the bottom information in the above article, it states that the people took 1005 immigrants not born in Canada, and also phone interviewed 1005 Canadian born citizens. Now, from what I remember, unless you are really interested in history or politics, Canadians really dont take any higher education over the earlier grades. Excluding my Canadian history class in university (mandatory for my degree), I think my last class in anything Canadian historical or social studies wise was back in grade 7 in Social Studies. I am going to make an educated guess and say that anyone who has a phone in their name, at home, who would take time away from their life to do a test like this would be in the range of 20+. Why? I would say that a 15 year old these days with a private line to their room would be listed but what 15 year old playing xbox/Wii or any of those other games would actually hit pause long enough to do a phone test when they get that sort of stuff at school, which they probably arent too happy doing for a reward of grades. A 20+, on the other hand, might be interested in how much they remember from their grade school days after watching one too many episodes of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". So, a 20+ year old would probably have taken classes in the info that they are asking about 7-10 years ago, and in that time they have learned 5 other grades worth of material, learned how to make the perfect bong from an apple, how to sneak the car out of the drive way to get to a bush party and get it back without daddy kicking their asses, hopefully gotten into university/college, gotten at least 1 or more jobs, gone through interview processes and on and on and on. The amount of information being introduced to a regular person is mind boggling so in the end some information might just have to be put aside and forgotten to make room for others. Let's face it, if you had the choice of retaining one type of information in your head and one of those tidbits was going to help you land a job in the electrical field that would pay you $1,500/month after taxes OR remembering what the three responsibilities that Canadians hold according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada is, which is gonna get dumped first? The only time a natural born Canadian might want to retain that sort of trivia information is if it pertains to the job and can make a living. Other than that, you might as well remember the trivia information of how many tines does the maple leaf have on the flag. Interesting, but useless info.
Immigrants, on the other hand, would have learned that information not too long ago, and if they did learn it long ago, chances are they probably learned it when they were adults and didnt have to have the competition of "remember how to make the perfect bong hit OR remember Canadian political trivia" that born Canadians did in their youth. Canadian trivia all of a sudden took higher importance to learn because they didnt pass the test, they dont become citizens and cant stay here to bring over the rest of their family to live a life of freedom that they were probably denied back in their homeland. What happens if a born Canadian doesnt pass social studies? they take shop class and pick up the credits and graduate or dont graduate and live off mommy and daddy in freedom land for the rest of their lives. No real threat there.
As for the connection between the lack of Canadian trivia information being connected with Canadian apathy for voting and social awareness. I think it is more a case of the gov't being responsible. I mean, with all due respects to the Conservative gov't these days, the gov't powers are basically a farce. There really is no problem solving going on these days on parliament hill to really make a better life. It all seems to be in a fashion of political mud slinging back and forth without actually looking at the problem. When the party isnt in power, most of their efforts and money is being spent on trying to prove that the party in power isnt doing their job and are slacking and wasting tax payers money. While the party in power spends the majority of their time, effort and money trying to defend their positions and only doing a little bit to help the people of the country. So, why vote for any particular party when the end result is the same. Win and waste our money slinging mud on the opposition, or lose and waste our money slinging money at the majority. In the end, the Canadian tax payer loses. Natural born Canadians have figured this war on parliament hill long ago and just have given up and let the morons battle it out, while those immigrants that just came over have this illusion that the parliament powers are actually doing something good for the people. If anything I would love to poll immigrants and mark their length of stay in Canada and measure their personal belief on how much they think the gov't is effective or not. I wouldnt be surprised if there was a direct correlation showing the longer you stay in Canada and learn about actual politics and living in the system and the lower voting or social participation.
It's time we learned our lines
By Licia Corbella (Edmonton Sun)
"O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command."
Familiar words, eh?
Well, at least they should be. Those are the opening lines to Canada's national anthem -- a hymn that has been sung in this country for more than 120 years.
According to a Dominion Institute poll released yesterday, only 58% of Canadians could recite those first two lines.
Apparently, just 16% of those polled could name the four provinces that formed Canada in 1867 -- Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That's a decline of six percentage points in 10 years.
Oh, Canada! How truly sad!
What's curious is immigrants scored higher than born Canadians on the 21-question test, indicating in part the exam they are required to take prior to being granted citizenship infuses them with a knowledge of their adopted country.
Rudyard Griffiths, who co-founded the Dominion Institute 10 years ago, says we "are fast becoming a nation of amnesiacs who lack basic knowledge about the country's past, its democratic institutions and practices and the physical geography of Canada."
Why is this important? Well, another study by the Association for Canadian Studies clearly shows the more knowledge a citizen has of Canada, the more involved that citizen is in public life and the more likely they are to vote, volunteer and have trust and confidence in our leaders and our country on the whole.
The Dominion Institute has two recommendations to improve this collective amnesia that leads to cynicism. It's calling on all premiers and ministers of education to organize a national citizenship exam for all high school students and it's calling on the feds to create a new passport program that would provide applicants with the opportunity to volunteer to take the citizenship exam when renewing or applying for their passport. That's a great start. But how about actually teaching our kids about their country in school?
Tomorrow marks our "glorious and free" country's 140th birthday.
The closing line of our anthem states: "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."
Can we really stand on guard for something we know so little about?
posted by Capt_Canuck at 10:51 AM
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