I have to confess with shame that at least 40 percent of my fellow citizens could not tell you where Manitoba or Alberta are.One of our favourite shows is this Canadian comedy/current events show called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" (a joke on the CBC's 22-minute evening newshour). In it, one of the hosts, Rick Mercer, will periodically have a segment called "Talking to Americans". He goes down to some southern US state (or other places, he went to Harvard once) and poses a garbage question to people, to see what kind of dumb things they say which show their ignorance of Canada (and the world). For example "Did you know that President Clinton approved air attacks on Saskatchewan this week? What do you think of that?" Then people will answer with things like "Yeah, we believe that we should do what it takes to maintain American sovereignty" or "If that's what's necessary to keep peace in the world then I support it 100%". Another good one was "Did you know that Canada recently celebrated the coronation of their new king Svend and queen Luba" (first names of a member of parliament and a TV personality) (by the way, we don't have a king and queen!). "Would you like to congratulate Canada?" And they get people on tape saying "Congratulations Canada on the coronation of your new king and queen" and other stuff. The best (or worst) part of it is that he talks to American politicians - the governor of Arkansas comes to mind - and gets them on camera saying these things. I am not kidding. He does it all with a straight face and it is too funny (and kind of embarrassing) to watch.
So, our big secret is out. Of course, not every American falls into this group and they obviously don't show us the footage of when Rick talks to the informed ones. However, lots of Americans don't know anything about Canada so it makes great fodder for our comedians.
And obviously that doesn't include the members of this board, who not only know a lot about the world but can admit when they don't know something, and then look it up! (I will admit to looking up where the heck Vermont was, exactly, a couple of weeks ago. New England is all a blur to someone from Western Canada!)
