POSTED AT 9:04 PM EST Sunday, December 1
In the shadow of the elephant Canadian Press Montreal - 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 Léger Marketing survey found that only 8 per cent of 1,500 adult Americans named Jean Chrétien 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 Mr. Chrétien's communications director, Françoise 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 Mr. Bush was U.S. President, compared with 3 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 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," Mr. Campbell said in an interview. "Canadians are really intrigued by the world around them in a way that Americans aren't." But Mr. 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 Mr. 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." That sentiment was also reflected when the two sets of respondents were asked to name the other country's largest city. Twenty-seven per cent of the Americans named Toronto, followed by Montreal at 22 per cent. Vancouver got 3 per cent and Calgary had 1 per cent. Other cities garnered 13 per cent, while the remaining 34 per cent either said they didn't know or refused to answer. Meanwhile, 72 per cent of Canadians knew New York was the largest city in the United States. Both Dr. Campbell and Mr. Clarkson said reports in the United States about Canada's professional sports teams might have had an influence on the U.S. answers. Mr. Campbell almost seemed to find 27 per cent a reasonable level of knowledge. "I'm not saying that Americans are geography geniuses," he said. "Virtually every survey that's ever been taken has shown that they're numbskulls when it comes to geography, even their own geography. "But, still, that [27 per cent] is a surprisingly robust number from my sort of jaundiced perspective of what the general public would know." Meanwhile, both professors reacted similarly when asked whether the number of Americans who knew Mr. Chrétien was Prime Minister would have been higher had the poll been conducted after Ms. Ducros's "moron" comment. Mr. Clarkson: "Oh sure, for five minutes it would be ... but they probably would have thought the prime minister was called Ducros." Mr. Campbell: "No, they'd say she [Ms. Ducros] was prime minister." The poll is considered accurate within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
