FIRST READING: The Canadian electorate may be even more tuned

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Canada is only 10 months away from a March 17 deadline under which MAID could become legal for the mentally ill. This would make Canada one of only six countries on earth where otherwise healthy citizens can be euthanized by their government for conditions such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

And according to a new survey by the Angus Reid Institute, a majority of Canadians had no idea any of this was happening. Of respondents, 56 per cent were “unaware that mental illness eligibility for MAID could arrive in March 2027.”

The survey illustrates an underappreciated aspect of Canadian politics, if not democratic politics generally. As political parties jockey for favour among the electorate, they’re often up against an audience that does not follow current affairs and may even struggle to define the basic workings of their political system.

Below, a cursory summary of other instances in which Canadians were found not to have the best grasp of what’s going on.

Canadians wildly underestimate the deadliness of cancer and car crashes

Just days before Canada was swept by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ipsos published a poll asking Canadians the most likely causes of death in their country.

These types of polls are famous for highlighting public overestimates of the murder rate, and Canada was no different: Respondents said six per cent of deaths were from homicide, against the true figure of 0.2 per cent.

But it also showed that Canadians were simultaneously underestimating the deadliness of the things most likely to kill them. At the time, cancer was responsible for 29 per cent of Canadian deaths, although Canadians thought it was 17 per cent.

Cardiovascular diseases represented another 29 per cent of deaths, with Canadians instead pegging the figure at 13 per cent.

And they were most inaccurate when it came to deadly accidents. At the time, one fifth of Canadian deaths were due to car crashes, plane crashes and other “transport-related” fatalities. But poll respondents guessed it was closer to one death in every 14 (seven per cent).

In 2012, most Canadians didn’t know how the prime minister is elected

A chronic problem with Canadian politics is the mistaken belief that U.S. norms are Canadian. Even Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is on record as thinking that she has pardon powers, even though that’s a prerogative of U.S. state governors, and not Canadian premiers

In a 2012 poll, Ipsos found that a majority of respondents seemed to think that the prime minister of Canada was directly elected, similar to a U.S. president.