Background to this story

April 17, 2002

The story that sparked this was an article in the Tuesday, April 16 (yesterday) edition of the Edmonton Journal in a story written by Rick Pedersen of their staff. It quotes Rudyard Griffiths, Executive Director of the Toronto-based Dominion Institute, as saying "Canadians are at times a nation of amnesiacs." The Institute advocates a fresh approach to teaching history in schools. The story says the Institute spent half-a-million bucks on polls over the last five years, and a recent poll found that 60% of Canadians failed a three-question quiz that asked them to identify three of Canada's best-known prime ministers. Results of the poll found that only 49% of Canadians knew Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act. Of 1000 polled by Ipsos Reid, 60% failed the quiz, including one-third who got none right. Only 51% named John A. Macdonald as our first prime minister. Only 19% could name our first francophone prime minister, Sir Wilfred Laurier.

Editor's note: Edmonton Journal and other CanWest Global papers do not archive their material so if you don't see it that day its history. The one exception is the National Post which does have an archive.