Perhaps there is hope after all
National Affairs
Claire Hoy
And now, some good news. Or at least some better news. It seems that despite the fact most provinces don't bother to teach Canadian history - a situation which is likely unique in the world - it seems that some young Canadians are at least learning something about their own country.

Not much, mind you. At least to the extent one accepts the findings of the latest national survey of 18-to-24 year-olds conducted by the Dominion Institute. Imagine asking American kids if they know who George Washington was, or Abe Lincoln, or any number of major figures in that country's history. Chances are the overwhelming majority would know.

Here in Canada, alas, a mere 46 per cent, less than half, of the 1,004 young people asked a series of 30 basic questions about Canada had no idea who Sir. John A. Macdonald was (which is eight percentage points LESS than a decade ago) and only 38 per cent knew that Newfoundland was the last province to join Confederation, down from 51 per cent who knew that in the 1997 survey. Worse, only 26 per cent knew that 1867 was Confederation year, a drop of nine points in a decade.

Not very encouraging stuff wouldn't you say?

Not all is complete despair, however. Given that we just recognized Remembrance Day on Sunday, there was a slight improvement (even though the numbers are still pathetic) in those who knew that Nov. 11 marked the end of the First World War, a jump to 37 per cent, up four points.

Overall, just 18 per cent of these young people knew enough about their own country to score a meager 16 or better out of the 30 question. Worth noting is that twice as many males as females passed the best, 24 per cent compared to just 12 percent of the young women.

Is it any wonder that in most elections in this country the number of people bothering to vote continues to fall?

Hell, some of these people probably don't even know there's an election on, let alone having any interest to walk a block or two and cast a ballot.

Surely this lack of knowledge and/or interest in our own country is a serious failure of our education system and of the politicians who won't make history a mandatory topic in most of the provinces.

Rudyard Griffiths, co-founder of the Dominion Institute, was quoted saying, "Both the major levels of government in our country, provincial and federal, have done little of any substance to tackle this issue in the last 10 years."

He's got that right.

One of the problems, of course, is that in our country we often find the elites deliberately distorting our actual history in the interest of their own short-term political interests.

A case in point - given the aforementioned Remembrance Day on Sunday - is this oft-repeated notion that Canada is the world's leading "peacekeeping" country. We're not. Not even close.

There was a time - since former prime minister Lester Pearson is the guy credited with the idea in the first place - but that was a long, long time ago.

Worse, our young people - and our not so young people - have been told by anti-military political types (read: Liberals and NDP) for years that Canada's history is on of peace keeping. No, it's not. And to claim that does a terrible disservice to the one million Canadians - 45,000 of whom died - who served in the Second World War, not to mention the hundreds of thousands from the first war and Korea and, currently, those in Afghanistan.

If you are led to believe that Canada has avoided war throughout its history, then those who oppose us doing our duty on the world stage can make a stronger argument against things such as Afghanistan.

And they can do so with impunity, knowing that most Canadians - not just the young ones - have very little idea of the history of the country they were either born in or came to live in.

That's just one reason among many why it's important to know your own history. It's about time we started learning it.

To end on a positive note, however, your correspondent was at a Remembrance Day ceremony Sunday in the east end of Toronto and was duly impressed by the number of young parents who not only came out to show their respect for the veterans but brought their young children along with them.

There is hope after all.