Posted on 12/01/2002 2:57:54 PM PST by quidnunc
Canadians are much more informed than Americans when it comes to knowing the identity of their neighbours' political leader, national capital and largest city, an opinion poll suggests.
The Leger Marketing survey found that only eight per cent of 1,500 adult Americans named Jean Chretien when they were asked to identify Canada's prime minister. Five per cent gave other answers, including Pierre Trudeau, who died two years ago after last being in power in 1984.
A whopping 86 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer.
The Americans were polled Oct. 7-13, long before Chretien's communications director, Francoise Ducros, created a stir in the United States and elsewhere when she called U.S. President George W. Bush a "moron."
Conversely, 90 per cent of the 1,502 adult Canadians who were polled Nov. 6-10 (also before the Ducros brouhaha, which led to her resignation) knew Bush was U.S. president, compared with three per cent who gave other answers.
When asked to name the capital of the other country, 88 per cent of the Canadians said Washington and 21 per cent of the Americans got Ottawa right.
Such numbers didn't surprise Colin Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia who recently spent 19 years in Washington, D.C.
"I think Canadians are much more citizens of the globe than Americans are and I think they're much more attuned to their own nation than Americans are," Campbell said in an interview.
"Canadians are really intrigued by the world around them in a way that Americans aren't."
But Campbell wasn't about to let all Canadians off the hook.
"That 12 per cent (who couldn't name Washington) must be incredibly ignorant people. It just shows that in any population, there are some people who probably couldn't even give you the name of their grandfather."
Stephen Clarkson, a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, said the lack of knowledge about Canada south of the border shouldn't surprise people.
"Americans are much more insular," said Clarkson, who has recently written a book entitled Uncle Sam and Us.
"It's not particularly Canada they don't know a lot about. They might have trouble with England …
"The Americans are ignorant about us. We're not important to them. We're not ignorant about the United States because they are important to us."
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(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
"The Americans are ignorant about us. We're not important to them. We're not ignorant about the United States because they are important to us."
Americans don't know the heads of state of Papua New Guinea or Kyrgizstan either.
Of course they are. If I lived in Canada, I'd be really interested in other places, too.
...kidding, kidding.
Wrongo. Canadians know who the American President is while Americans have no clue who the Canadian PM is for one simple reason: IT MATTERS who the American President is.
Good or bad that about sums it up.
I thought his name was 'Cretin.'
I didn't think that many Americans cared. I don't.
And of those 7.76% later admitted they only looked it up to ensure their graffiti slurs were spelled correctly...
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