Vimy Ridge

Monday, April 11. 2005

Poll says only One in Four Young Canadians Know About Vimy Ridge

A new poll comissioned by the Dominion Institute and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute says Canadians overwhelmingly support increased public spending to commemorate the First World War and a greater emphasis on educating youth about veterans' contributions to the country.

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Canadians were intensely appreciative of veterans and willing to support a variety of initiatives to honour Canada's First World War legacy.

Despite such goodwill, a significant proportion of the 1,000 randomly chosen Canadians who took part in the survey -- including the vast majority of young people -- knew few of the basic facts of Canada's experience in "The War to End All Wars."

Knowledge of pivotal events and facts is in steep decline, in fact, and there remains only a tenuous identification with our most significant single victory: the capture of Vimy Ridge, which took place 88 years ago today.

Just 33 per cent were familiar with the successful assault on dug-in German positions at Vimy on the morning of April 9, 1917. The battle was instrumental in confirming Canada's sense of nationhood, although the cost was steep -- 10,602 Canadians were killed or wounded, nearly one in three present.

Twenty-six per cent of those under the age of 35 knew about Vimy, and fewer than seven per cent of Quebecers, although the 22nd French-Canadian Battalion, the famous "Van Doos," was present.

Greg Lyle, managing director of Innovative Research Group, Inc., the Toronto firm that conducted this and two previous polls, in 2002 and 1998, said the results indicate the education system is instilling an inadequate appreciation of veterans' achievements and sacrifice.

Only Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island require students to graduate with a course in contemporary Canadian history. Other provinces teach it as a unit of social science, emphasizing relevant themes rather than a detailed chronology of events.

"We know from other (studies) that knowledge drives interest, interest drives knowledge. They're a mutually reinforcing circle (and) the knowledge you leave school with remains relatively stable throughout life," Mr. Lyle said.

"We've stopped learning history the traditional way -- sequentially -- and it seems to be having an effect on Canadians' ability to recall key facts. People who know these facts are more likely to value these facts."

The poll, conducted between March 29 and April 3, is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, and was released exclusively to CanWest-Global.