Canadian Politeness

Last week, I told you about an experiment that Reader’s Digest conducted, visiting thirty five cities around the world and testing for politeness. The study found New Yorkers to be the most polite. Toronto also did Canadians proud by placing a respectable third place internationally.

Reader’s Digest promised to test for politeness within Canada’s borders and those results are in. They used the same three tests for politeness in Canada as they did globally.
They sent a pair of under cover male and female reporters, into fifteen of Canada’s major cities.

In each place these reporters:

1) Walked into public buildings behind people ten times to see if they would hold the door open for them.
2) Bought small items from ten stores and reported whether the sales clerk said, “Thank you.”
3) Dropped a folder full of papers, in ten busy locations to see if anyone would stop to help pick them up.

They allowed one point for each positive behavior for a perfect score of thirty. The results were expressed in percentages.

Muncton New Brunswick topped the charts scoring 80%. Respondents there believe that courtesy is part of the Maritime way of life. Calgary and Vancouver tied for second place with a very respectable seventy seven percent. After a reporter in a Calgary flower shop bought a single bloom, the salesperson went the extra mile and dressed it up with pussy willows, bear grass and purple ribbons. She also thanked the reporter for her purchase “I find the more courteous you are, the more people respond to that,” she commented.

Edmonton Alberta came in third place. There, a twenty three year old women, who was delivering a big bouquet of flowers bent down with her free hand to pick up scattered papers. “I was brought up well” she said.

Now for the bad news: After ranking third from the top in the global test for politeness, Toronto faced many obstacles in the national test, ranking third from the bottom, scoring a dismal sixty percent. Saskatoon was worse at fifty seven percent. There, a woman admonished her friend for not helping to pick up the scattered papers.” You could have helped,” she quipped, as they both walked by.

Our nation’s capital, Ottawa, has the biggest challenge when it comes to politeness. They barely passed, scoring fifty percent on the test. When asked why she didn’t stop to help pick up scattered papers, a well dressed, Ottawa women responded, “He might have been a politician.” This proves that you can’t tell who will help you based on appearance alone.

I’d be interested in your thoughts. Do you think the test Readers Digest used for measuring politeness is a reliable indicator of politeness or would you have used other criteria? What politeness encounters have you experienced? Let me know!

- Terry Harris

Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was two years old, Terry Harris in the opinion of many experts within the medical and education professions, would never walk, talk, read, write or go to a regular school. It was recommended to his parents that he beplaced in an institution. In 1995 Terry graduated from Brock University with a B.A. in English Literature and obtained a degree in marriage and family therapy in 1999 from Tyndale Seminary.