As people gather to remember those who fought and died to protect this country in past wars, a new poll suggests many Canadians know little about their country’s history.
That’s likely because high school students in most provinces and territories are not required to take a Canadian history class before graduating, experts say.
Many Canadians are in the dark about the people who helped build this country and the seminal moments that define its past and could inform its future, according to an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Historica Canada — the educational charity best known for producing the Heritage Minutes.
One question that stumped most poll respondents was about Viola Desmond.
The pioneering Black beautician-turned-civil rights icon has been on the $10 bill for the last six years, but she’s an obscure figure to more than half of the 1,001 Canadians surveyed for the poll.
As for acclaimed writer Lucy Maud Montgomery — author of Anne of Green Gables, arguably Canada’s most famous literary export — about 56 per cent of those surveyed said they’d never heard of her. Another 15 per cent said they knew the name but couldn’t tell pollsters what she did.
Poll respondents were also largely clueless about celebrated author and historian Pierre Berton (57 per cent said they’re not at all familiar with him) and pioneering surgeon Norman Bethune (63 per cent drew a blank). And 71 per cent of poll respondents said they couldn’t identify Rosemary Brown, Canada’s first Black major party leadership candidate.
As for identifying certain Canadian history moments or factoids, 82 per cent of people surveyed got a failing grade on Historica’s quiz, according to the poll results.
Of the 30 true-false questions asked, fewer than one in five respondents (18 per cent) managed to pass the quiz with 15 or more answers right.
“Our respondents fared terribly. It was bad,” said Anthony Wilson-Smith, president and CEO of Historica.
WARNING: This video portrays a reenactment of the execution of Louis Riel. This Heritage Minute, made in 1991, imagines the final thoughts that may have run through Métis leader Louis Riel’s head before he was executed for high treason in 1885. The minute was removed from the Historica Canada portfolio in 2020. Source Wayback Machine/YouTube/Historica Canada
While some of the questions asked were obscure (knowing comedian John Candy’s birthday is on Halloween doesn’t tell you much about Canadian history), Wilson-Smith said the poll identifies a general trend.
“There’s not a great knowledge of history. It’s getting lost in the bushes right now,” he said.
“We need to know what was done well, where we could have done better and how we came to be this way. We’re all collectively hamstrung by this absolutely infuriating belief that Canadian history isn’t interesting — and that’s demonstrably false.”
Historica’s data also shows that Desmond is becoming less known as the years go by, despite her prominent place on the currency.
“Canadians really should know about one of our great civil rights pioneers,” Wilson-Smith said.
Historica’s previous polls on Canadian history knowledge also offered troubling news for subject matter experts.
Last year’s poll found Canadians know more about American military history than their own country’s wartime experiences.
Nation-defining moments like Canada’s role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in the First World War or the Juno Beach landing on D-Day get second billing to American military exploits.
Moreover, nearly 30 per cent of survey respondents couldn’t identify the year Canada became a country through Confederation (it’s 1867) and a similar proportion couldn’t identify Sir John A. Macdonald as Canada’s first prime minister.
Experts in the field say there’s a reason for these results. It’s not mandatory for high school students in some provinces and territories to take a course on Canadian history.
While there are “social studies” and “global studies” courses that may cover aspects of the Canadian experience, some provinces — including Alberta, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador — have decided it’s not necessary for students to take a course explicitly focused on Canadian history before graduating high school.
In other provinces, such as Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, students can take courses on African-Canadian or Mi’kmaw or Native studies to fulfil their Canadian history requirements. Some francophone schools in predominantly English-speaking provinces teach almost nothing about Canadian history at the secondary school level. Other provinces, such as B.C. and Ontario, have a more robust curriculum, although the material taught has come in for criticism.
“The majority of provinces and territories don’t devote very much time — if at all — to teaching Canadian history. It’s either nonexistent or it’s put under the rubric of social sciences,” Wilson-Smith said. “In other places, it’s a one-year thing. It’s hard to teach 15,000 years of history in a year.”
In the U.S., American history is a mandatory course for high school students in 46 of the 50 states.
Michael Zwaagstra is a Canadian history teacher in Steinbach, Man.
He said it’s “problematic” that the country’s history is routinely brushed aside by the people who craft school curriculums.
“To function in society, to be a good citizen, you need to know how the government works and you need to understand our history because how things are today [is] heavily influenced by things in the past,” he said in an interview.
He said some new Canadians may know more about the country’s history than some graduating Grade 12 students because, as part of the citizenship process, applicants are required to study the 68-page “Discover Canada” guide and pass a test.
Canada could lose what makes it unique if its history isn’t widely taught, Zwaagstra said.
“If we’re not grounded in Canadian history, then a lot of Canadians will just default to American stuff. We’re not Americans, we’re Canadians, and we need to know about our own history,” he said.
The War of 1812 — which saw the Americans prevented from annexing what’s now Canada — the unique circumstances around Confederation, the bold decision to build a transcontinental railway to bind this vast country together, Canada’s outsized role in the First and Second World Wars, Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, the ugly legacy of residential schools — those are all seminal moments that should be understood by every Canadian, Zwaagstra said.
“Typically, the people who think it’s boring are people who haven’t studied very much. It’s easy to assume it’s boring if you don’t know much about it,” he said.
“Our history is inspirational. Our country didn’t just come out of nowhere. It was formed and there were mistakes made along the way — quite a few of them — but there are also a lot of positive and impressive things.”
While education is a provincial responsibility, advocates say Ottawa should step in to ensure better knowledge of the country and its past by establishing some sort of national standards.
Zwaagstra said it shouldn’t be just new citizens who learn the foundational material in what he called the “excellent” government-produced Discover Canada guide.
The federal government gets involved in other areas like health and housing that aren’t strictly its responsibility and ensuring better history instruction should be added to the list, he said.
There’s a new Heritage Minute coming soon and it highlights the story of Norman Kwong, a former Alberta lieutenant-governor who first rose to fame as a CFL fullback, winning four Grey Cups with Calgary and Edmonton between 1948 and 1960. CBC visited the set to find out more about the portrayal of his extraordinary legacy.
Canadians do seem to care about their history when they get a chance to engage with it.
Historica’s content, like the Heritage Minutes, is widely viewed — the minutes get millions of views on YouTube.
“There’s a quiet pride among Canadians and when you awaken it, it’s a very remarkable thing to see,” Wilson-Smith said.