Canadians Flunk Being Canadian

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1:05 am, July 6, 2007 EDT — EclecticBlogs

I was scanning the news and came across an article on Reuters site that intrigued me. It was titled "Most Canadians would fail own citizenship test". As a Canadian I thought this was interesting. But before I could write this post blasting Canadians I figured I better do a test or 2 and see how I fared. I mean I would hate to put my size 9's in my mouth. I took 3 practice citizenship tests that give a series of questions similar to ones people taking the real citizenship test would get. One was from a company called 74 Technologies; one was from The Richmond Public Library; and one was from CBC. Phew!!! I passed with flying colors with scores of 22/24, 19/20 and 20/20. Unfortunately I am an exception in Canada. According to an Ipsos-Reid survey a full 60% of Canadians failed a mock citizenship test. 60% How disgusting is that? When a similar test was done in 1997 only 45% failed the test. That is a 33% increase in stupidity. How can Canadians not know anything about the great country we live in. What the hell is being taught in our schools? Maybe it isn't so much the schools as people just don't give a shit about the country they live in. I would bet that many of those failing would probably do better on the US Citizenship test. We are bombarded with television and news from the US and I am sure some of that would stick with them. There was one stat in particular that I found interesting: There is a large disparity among the various provinces and regions in Canada. Just under one third (27%) of Quebecers were able to pass the test, and only four in ten (41%) Ontarians and Albertans (38%) also passed the test. On the flip side, almost six in ten (58%) residents in Saskatchewan and Manitoba were able to pass the twenty-one question test, while around half of residents in British Columbia (50%) and Atlantic Canada (48%) passed. Notice the province at the bottom end of the scale? Need I say more? Another interesting stat: Men were more likely to pass the test than women, with 46% of men achieving a passing grade, while just 35% of women managed to do the same. Again, need I say more? The last interesting stat: Middle aged Canadians, aged 35 to 54, were the most likely to pass the test, with 44% managing to do so. The youngest (18-34) and oldest (55+) Canadians who took the exam were equally likely to pass, with just under four in ten (38%) passing. I guess the fact that I fall into the last 2 top categories (men and middle aged) accounts partially for my high scores. Part of that is due to this post I did a couple of weeks ago. The other part of it is because I like to read and learn. So if you are interested in seeing how you would do, take one of the tests and leave me a comment with your score. I would like to leave you with a another interesting stat: Just one third (32%) of Canadians could correctly identify the number of Canadian provinces and territories. Only 15% of Quebecers were able to do so. Maybe they just don't want to be a part of Canada. Or maybe they just don't care. Read: The Dominion Institute National Citizenship Exam Survey Of 2007 Technorati tags: Canada, citizenship test, Canadians

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