An interesting poll was published today by the Dominion Institute, concluding that the majority of Canadians lack a basic understanding of our parliamentary system.
The four basic questions asked were :
- Who is the head of state?
- How can Canada’s system of government best be described?
- Do Canadians elect the prime minister directly?
- Can the governor general nix a prime minister’s request for a new election?
With the exception of question #4, the results for all questions were very poor. On question is #3, 51% of people incorrectly and believed that we elect our prime minister directly, where in fact, in Canada we elect local members of Parliament. Then, as a matter of tradition, the leader of the party with the most members by is endorsed by the governor general as prime minister.
The Conservatives are a clever bunch, and seemed to already be aware of this widespread ignorance amongst there voter base and using it to their advantage. Last week, Conservative Heritage Minister James Moore gave university students a virtual slap-in-the-face when he said that POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENTS will be rushing to ask their professors if a coalition government was consitutionally possible. And if you act fast, you can sign up on the Conservative website and download your very own ‘cheat sheet’ on what to say on talk radio shows, filled with constitutionally inaccurate zingers like:
“What I want even less is a backdoor Prime Minister whom I never had the opportunity to vote for or against”
(even though we don’t vote for Prime Ministers)
“Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.”
(again, we vote for individual members of Parliament, not coalitions or political parties)
Political ignorance is a real threat to democracy, and it is very sad to see it being reinforced by political party in an effort to hold onto power. The Dominion Institute points to educators as the main culprits of the public’s lack of political knowledge, but shame on the Conservatives for making matters worse by reinforcing this ignorance by spreading untruths about the Canadian parlaimentary system in their recent media blitz attacking the Liberal-NDP Coalition.
