A new poll by the Dominion Institute shows that Canadians are faring dramatically worse today than they did in 1997 in a test of their knowledge of history, politics, culture and geography.
About 60 per cent would fail today a test similar to the one that immigrants take to become Canadian citizens. A decade ago, when the institute began quizzing Canadians, just 45 per cent were unable to score a passing grade by answering 12 out of 21 questions correctly.
Just as striking is the finding that immigrants have improved their knowledge in the past 10 years and did better than the general population in the latest quiz. About 70 per cent of first-generation Canadians passed, while a decade ago scores in the two groups were similar, with the edge going to those born in this country.
The results cast a shadow over the non-profit organization co-founded by Mr. Griffiths and two friends on a $150,000 grant and which this week celebrated its 10th anniversary with a glitzy party in Toronto.
Mr. Griffiths said he had braced himself for a slippage in the pass rate and was disheartened by the dramatic decline in awareness of Canada's past and the practice of its democratic institutions.
"It's not simply that we've not managed to move the dial forward a few degrees," he said.
"Instead the dial has been going in the wrong direction."
The current survey contains some of the same howlers as the earlier one, which was commissioned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Citizenship Act, the first statute to define Canadian citizenship.
Among the findings:
The title of the national anthem was named by 96 per cent of the respondents, but only 58 per could name the first two lines of O Canada. This is five percentage points worse than in 1997.
Just 16 per cent of Canadians could name the four provinces - Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia - that formed Canada in 1867. This is a decline of six points.
In 1997, 87 per cent of those surveyed correctly answered "fur" or "beaver" to the question that asked about the trade controlled by Hudson Bay Co., but in the latest quiz just 66 per cent gave the right answer.
One in three Canadians a decade ago identified the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the part of the Constitution that protects the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. In 2007, the correct response rate had declined to 22 per cent. Six in 10 immigrants identified the Charter, however.
Just 8 per cent of Canadians identified the Queen as Canada's head of state, with half the respondents incorrectly citing the prime minister.
One-third of immigrants, however, named the Queen.
Mr. Griffiths, the Dominion Institute's executive director, said the results indicate that "the country's common memory is dwindling and may even be shrinking rapidly."
But he is less certain about why this is happening.
He believes the higher scores among immigrants result from the fact that they have had to study to pass the official citizenship exam and that they have a curiosity about their adopted country. For too many native-born Canadians, citizenship is a convenience rather than a conscious act, he added.
This indifference to civic literacy is reflected in Canada's education system, Mr. Griffiths said.
Just three provinces - Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec - require a history credit for high-school graduation. He suggested that the emphasis in school curriculums on science and math indicates a bias toward turning out graduates who are attractive to employers rather than fully informed citizens.
"We are becoming a nation of civic slackers, a country of consumers who are satisfied and validated through lives that are focused increasingly around consumption as opposed to the democratic process and the responsibilities of citizenship," he said.
The Dominion Institute and other lobbyists for historical knowledge have been unsuccessful in persuading the Council of Ministers of Education to make history study mandatory.
Mr. Griffiths is now calling on the premiers to organize a national citizenship exam that would be a requirement for high-school graduation.
There are some regional differences in the test results. For example, just 27 per cent of Quebeckers passed, while nearly six in 10 residents of Saskatchewan and Manitoba were successful.
Respondents with a university education and those who are middle-aged and lived in urban centres were more likely to post a passing score. In addition, more men (46 per cent) than women (35 per cent) passed.
Mr. Griffiths said the results indicate that critics - particularly on the left - who dismiss his annual quiz as irrelevant have got it wrong.
He said studies indicate that civic literacy is linked to political participation and that the institute's survey shows that low-income people with limited educations are ill prepared to engage in the debate about policies to deal with poverty.
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