A new Washington Post poll surveying over 20,000 U.S citizens has found that the vast majority of Americans believe Toronto to be the political capital of Canada. The groundbreaking research highlights the growing disparity of knowledge between the two nations.
“I mean Toronto is the one you sometimes hear about,” said one respondee (27), New York. “That’s about as good as it gets for Canada.”
Canada’s actual capital city, Ottawa, received less than 0.2% of the vote, indicating that Americans know little to nothing about their neighbour’s Washington D.C. equivalent. Toronto topped the poll with a whopping 73% of the votes while Vancouver received 15%, Montreal 8% and finally Alaska received 3% of the votes.
When confronted with the statistics, many surveyed told reporters that they felt it was a trick question. “Like what country doesn’t have its biggest city as its capital,” said one young LA local. “It’s pretty weird.”
Steve a 38-year-old stockbroker from Chicago, said he simply chose the city he had actually heard of. “Some of the options like Edmonton and Ottawa were clearly made up, so it was an easy answer,” he said assuredly. He later refused to believe either Ottawa’s status as capital city or its mere existence, saying he wasn’t “as dumb as your stereotypical American”.
Others thought that many of the options were simply joke answers. “I mean London was a choice,” said Mary (25), New York. “How stupid do you have to be think London is in Canada?”
When Justin Trudeau was informed, the Prime Minister immediately contacted the U.S. government to offer a full apology for the “obvious miscommunication” on Canada’s part.
Interestingly, not all Torontonians were able to answer the same question correctly either, with 87% insisting their city is the current capital. “Well we’re the capital of the universe, so I guess that means we’re the capital of Canada too?” one said, “huh, that’s kinda neat I guess.”
