Roundup: Some shocking civic illiteracy stats

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I generally make it a policy not to talk about polls, but this one was just so disheartening that I feel the need to say something about it. Abacus Data asked a series of questions about federal government and governance, and it’s just…depressing to see the rate of responses that clearly show a lack of interest and a lack of education in how our system works.

These are the very basics of Responsible Government, and it’s important to understand what that means. But I recall that when I was in school, we talked about achieving Responsible Government as a recommendation in the Durham Report, and that Canada eventually got there, but they never explained what it actually meant, or what it entails in practical terms. And that’s a problem, especially when we are inundated with American popular culture about their politics, and their conception of how the UK’s system works (the rate of them who believe that absolute monarchy still exists is high. It’s very high) bleeds over to our popular understanding as well, and it’s a problem. That’s why I wrote The Unbroken Machine.

Some of these responses are simply an indication that people aren’t paying attention to the news, and that the way in which media communicates things can be unhelpful and confusing in how things are discussed. Abacus didn’t make sides for other questions in the survey, such as which level of responsibility does education fall under – which was better at 83 percent correctly answering that it falls under provincial jurisdiction, but again, this is the kind of ignorance that leaders like Jagmeet Singh like to exploit in order to drive cynicism. Civics education is vitally important, as is media literacy, and we are failing Canadians fundamentally because we refuse to teach them correctly in this country.

Good reads:

  • Health Canada has now approved paediatric doses of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged five to eleven. Here are five things to know about it.
  • Also announced is that starting November 30th, fully vaccinated Canadians who travel to the US for less than 72 hours can skip the mandatory PRC test.
  • At the Halifax International Security Forum, Anita Anand said that the ongoing sexual misconduct crisis in the military is hurting morale and recruitment efforts.
  • Carolyn Bennett says that national plans to combat the opioid crisis will be informed by BC’s efforts, and that can include moving on decriminalisation and safe supply.
  • The scuttlebutt is that federal and Ontario officials will be meeting next week to try and hash out a deal on child care.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that two exploitative pimps running an escort service could still be convicted under old prostitution laws.
  • Erin O’Toole claims that all of his MPs are vaccinated or have exemptions – but I would have some serious doubts about some of those exemptions.
  • Independent MP Kevin Vuong has broken his silence, and said he was naïve not to have mentioned his withdrawn charges (but still denies wrongdoing).
  • Here is a profile of Nunavut’s new premier, PJ Akeeagok.
  • Jen Gerson darkly wonders about what the BC floods portend, in particular on a macro scale, and why our governments have allowed these generations of failure.
  • My weekend column looks at the Leader of the Government in the Senate’s agenda, and why we shouldn’t necessarily trust him on any of it.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Some shocking civic illiteracy stats”

  1. Pretty sad on how ignorant some Canadians are. That is the reason that some of these lunatic right wing parties are gaining headway and on the left Singh has and is using this ignorance to try and garner votes.

  2. The media serves their corporate masters’ wishes and partisan affiliations, which is why they allow Singh to get away with obfuscating jurisdictional matters and blaming Trudeau for things that are in Ford’s, Kenney’s, or (especially) Horgan’s wheelhouse, in hopes of splitting the Liberal vote. They don’t substantively inform the public or provide civic awareness to their viewers and readers, because it benefits them to have people mired in ignorance. The cruel irony is that education *is* a provincial responsibility, which is why you’ll never see the very same right-wing premiers support bolstering it to increase civic awareness among students and their parents. They’re quite content to allow the feds to take the fall while they get a free pass. Fact-averse populism is benefitted by ignorance.

  3. I couldn’t count how many times I have written a comment here or responded to other blogs about Canadians ignorance of what falls into Federal, Provincial and other jurisdictions. My favorite thing to say when folks complain about an issue is “I guess that’s Trudeau’s fault and EVERY time I am told that it is! Singh is the worst but the Cons use this obfuscation every chance they get. I haven’t gotten to the point of calling Canadians stupid as they haven’t quite gotten to the state of affairs in the US but it a close call. The definition of stupid is ignorance without any common sense.

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