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Sunday, September 05, 2004

Where's Canada?

After reading over my last post I began to realize something. Canadians know much more about our country then we do about theirs. They know the names of our political parties and the candidates, could Americans say the same about Canada?

Here's a quick quiz, Americans only.

What is the capital city of Canada?
What is the title of the leader of Canada and who is it and what political party?
What is their equivalent to Congress called?
Name the province that has flirted with independence from Canada in the last few decades?
Name the three other political parties that have seats in the House of Commons.
Name another national political party that has an affiliation to an American political party.

So how did you do of the 10 answers needed? I would be surprised if Americans could average 3 out of the 10 of this basic knowledge. Yet Canadians probably know more like 8 or 9 out of 10 for similar questions of American politics.

I remember in the Detroit area when Bush was here campaigning in 2000. He was asked by a Canadian reporter about Paul Martin and Bush said "Who?" And when the reporter explained, Bush tried to play it off like he did know who he was. But it was so obvious he knew nothing about Martin. We Americans are so self engrossed about our country that we think of Canada as that country above us, near the North Pole right? Isn't Alaska attached to it? They play alot of hockey don't they?

Speaking for my fellow Americans I'd like to apologize to Canadians for our ignorance. We share this huge border with you and the vast majority of our country would be hard pressed to name 3 of your provinces. Heck, I'd bet plenty of Americans would wonder, where's Canada?

Quick Quiz answers.
Ottawa, Prime Minister Paul Martin Liberal, House of Commons, Quebec, Conservative Party, Bloc Quebcois, New Democratic Party, Green Party of Canada.

1 Comments:

Blogger Heather said...

In all fairness, there are probably a lot of Canadians who couldn't answer the quiz about their own country. But yeah, in general the rest of the world knows a lot more about the USA than the USA knows about the rest of the world. It's the American education system that's cheating its citizens.
Your blog is honest and fair and that is why I link to it. Keep up the good work!

3:36 AM  

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