Guilty As Charged

It's time we learned our lines

By Licia Corbella

"O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command."

Familiar words, eh?

Well, at least they should be. Those are the opening lines to Canada's national anthem -- a hymn that has been sung in this country for more than 120 years.

According to a Dominion Institute poll released yesterday, only 58% of Canadians could recite those first two lines.

Apparently, just 16% of those polled could name the four provinces that formed Canada in 1867 -- Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That's a decline of six percentage points in 10 years.

Oh, Canada! How truly sad!

What's curious is immigrants scored higher than born Canadians on the 21-question test, indicating in part the exam they are required to take prior to being granted citizenship infuses them with a knowledge of their adopted country.

Rudyard Griffiths, who co-founded the Dominion Institute 10 years ago, says we "are fast becoming a nation of amnesiacs who lack basic knowledge about the country's past, its democratic institutions and practices and the physical geography of Canada."

Why is this important? Well, another study by the Association for Canadian Studies clearly shows the more knowledge a citizen has of Canada, the more involved that citizen is in public life and the more likely they are to vote, volunteer and have trust and confidence in our leaders and our country on the whole.

The Dominion Institute has two recommendations to improve this collective amnesia that leads to cynicism. It's calling on all premiers and ministers of education to organize a national citizenship exam for all high school students and it's calling on the feds to create a new passport program that would provide applicants with the opportunity to volunteer to take the citizenship exam when renewing or applying for their passport. That's a great start. But how about actually teaching our kids about their country in school?

Tomorrow marks our "glorious and free" country's 140th birthday.

The closing line of our anthem states: "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."

Can we really stand on guard for something we know so little about?