Anti-Americanism spoonfed to Canadian grade school kids
by Judi McLeod
June 7, 2004
It’s not just overreaction or Yankee imagination. Anti-Americanism is not only alive and well, it’s spoon fed in Canada.
And it stems from a taxpayer paid source: the classroom.
The Three `Rs, Canada style, have been teaching school children as young as grade school an image of Americans as dishonourable, churlish and even bullying. This less than admirable image emerges in a study, presented this week to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted by the University of Manitoba.
Amy von Heyking is a professor of education at the University of Alberta. A specialist in the history of curricula and teaching materials, von Heyking relied on actual Canadian classroom textbooks--75 of them--used in Canadian history, geography, civics and social studies courses in elementary and secondary schools.
Ironic that the release of the study coincides with the 60th Anniversary of D-Day.
The Canadian grade school set get their anti-Americanism during the school day.
Down through the decades, in Canadian textbooks American society has been portrayed as revolutionary and lawless. America’s contribution to World War 1 is dismissed, textbook form, as coming late, when the tide had already turned.
Bad Housing as the American way is documented in a chapter of its own because of the supposed role it plays in the development of crime.
America’s children are portrayed as being brought up in "filthy tenements, driven out upon the streets to play in `gangs’," according to a 1934 textbook that was prevalent in Canadian classrooms of the day.
In contrast, Canadians are depicted as orderly, harmonious and gentlemanly.
States the study author: "After the Second World War, the United States emerged as a champion of democracy around the world. This allowed Canada to trumpet its status as middle-power broker to negotiate and compromise in a way that the United States couldn’t."
This explains where little Paulie (Martin), little Johnny (Chretien) and the plethora of anti-American Canadian journalists got their base for Yankee bashing. They, too are among the masses, which were educated in Canadian classrooms.
Chretien and Martin, the last two Liberal Canadian prime ministers have been avid boosters of the United Nations. Both men count UN Secretary General Kofi Annan special advisor, Maurice Strong as mentor and friend.
Not only did Canada refuse to join the U.S. and allies in the Iraq war; its government has been openly critical of the U.S. and its allies in Iraq.
The Liberals’ proposal for a "Peace and Nation-Building Initiative" that would not employ fighting troops, but rather "troops tasked to build institutions in fractured countries, has raised the dander of experienced Canadian peacekeepers.
Running for re-election in the Canadian June 28 federal election are Carolyn Parrish, a Liberal MP who stated publicly "I hate those American bastards" and MP Colleen Beaumier, whose visit and sympathies for Iraq earned her the nickname "Baghdad Beaumier".
Meanwhile, while anti-Americanism flourishes in America’s next door neighbour, the U.S. is Canada’s number one trading partner and because of Canada’s marginalized Armed Forces, its chief protector.
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Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at:
letters@canadafreepress.com. You can read your Letters to the Editor here.
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