A Canadian acquaintance of mine, a mechanical engineer and to all appearances a very smart fellow, claimed that Canada was on its way to being a world leader in jet engine technology back in the '50's until the United States somehow put the kabosh on it. When I asked him "how could this happen," he said "no one knows," as if dark conspiracies were at work. Another Canadian I know believes wholeheartedly in (what seem to me) to be the most fanatical conspiracy theories that have American politicians (specifically Jews) pulling the strings of basically everything bad that happens in the world.
Now, I realize that this sample, containing just two Canadians, cannot possibly be considered statistically valid. The sample consists of the only two Canadians I know.
In other words, I've come across two Canadians, pretty much randomly selected from the population, and both exhibit what I consider "intentional ignorance," in which otherwise intelligent and educated people latch on to anti-information, even though the truth is available to them. Why?
(steely)
Yes , That will tell you a lot about a population of 32 million. :)
Your engineer acquaintance is likely referring to the Arrow program in the 50's which , for various reasons, developed the Iroquois jet engine which boosted the speed of the Arrow beyond any other engine available to the developers . In 1959 the Conservative Deifenbaker government canceled the program and the Arrows were destroyed along with all blueprints etc. NASA hired many of the unemployed designers and engineers.
And Ottawa bought into the most insane defense idea ever, The Bomarc from Boeing.