Quote:
Originally Posted by Temporary_User
What I find (been told) is that Canadians of course are taught their own history, although they don't really build up the characters as the USA and British do. This could be shown by taking a look at the recent (2004) CBC Greatest Canadians list. Most are people who are still living, or their accomplishments are still considered recent (this could show that Canadians are starting to build some of their characters up).
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Oh man, SO true! I've very proud to be Canadian, but I hate how we're all proud about the fact that we're known as beer-chuggin hockey playing guys who say "eh" alot. Why are we proud of a world stereotype of ourselves? Probably because we dont KNOW anything about ourselves.
That Greatest Canadians list is a joke. There's SO much from our history to be proud of. Like Pearson's work to diffuse the Suez Crisis, which transformed us into a country who was a fixture in peacekeeping, and until very recently we were the ONLY country who had taken part in every single U.N. peacekeeping mission. Or how about that we're the first ever country to actually draw up an official Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Or bringing through health care in the 1960's.
Or storming the beaches of Normandy, where the Canadians at Juno Beach made it further inland that day than the British and Americans in the other three beach raids? Or the great World War I bomber hero, Billy Bishop, the Canadian who was perhaps the greatest flying ace of the entire British Empire fleet? Or in the Battle of Ypres, when Canada was exposed to one of the first ever cases of biological warfare ever used, when the Germans attacked a Canadian and French squad with chlorine gas attacks. The French fled, but Canada held its ground and took out the surprised Germans(one Canadian realized urine helps neutralize it, so they all peed into cloths or whatever they had and held it over their noses. When the Germans approached they figured everyone would be wiped out, and were shocked to see the Canadians still standing their guard, who quickly took them down).
Its interesting how I learnt about 90% of these things in univeristy, not in grade school. Canadian history is so much more interesting than what you're taught in school. It really is a shame the vast majority of Canadians know nothing about our own rich history.