Before Leger asked 2,538 Canadians about their morality, Sun Media tested the tepid moral waters by placing an online classified ad on a major national website. It read: “Mom’s debt is your gain." (Shutterstock.com)

Before you begin one of the largest polls ever conducted on morality in Canada, start with one question.

Do you want to buy our elderly mom’s antique wedding ring?

Leger Marketing — for this exclusive five-part Sun Media project — polled adult Canadians on everything from the ethics behind our presence in Afghanistan to who would offer up their spouse for $1- million. We looked at honesty, religion, charity and what you do if you accidentally bump your mate’s toothbrush into the toilet.

Some of the answers may surprise you — especially if your own moral compass points in the opposite direction.

On Afghanistan, only one-third of Canadians felt sending our troops to fight is morally the right thing to do, and almost half of those polled believe the war is not driven by our values. Quebecers felt, more than those in any other province, continuing to fight there is morally wrong.

Dave Scholz, vice-president of Leger Marketing, says Canadians, overall, believe they are a moral lot — having learned their principals on the knee of their parents.

And we’re very Canadian in how we compare our virtues to others, he notes.

“I think humble is a great word,” says Scholz, pointing to a third of people in the poll who said our code is no better or worse than other nations.

But before Leger asked that of the 2,538 Canadians polled, Sun Media tested the tepid moral waters by placing an online classified ad on a major national website.

It read: “Mom’s debt is your gain.

“My mother has owed me money for some time, and hasn’t been able to pay back the debt, so her gold and diamond antique wedding ring — the collateral — is being offered for sale.

“We have an appraisal from a national jewelry store for $2,725 — the rings dates from the 1800s and was my great-great grandmother’s,” the ad continued, before asking just $150 for it. “If interested, there are other antique pieces, such as earrings and bracelets available.”

The buyer was also promised photos, taken over the past century, of mom’s family members wearing the gems.

In less that five minutes, the offers began to fill up our in-box.

They didn’t stop, wanting photos and sizes and to pay the $150. And when asked if they were bothered by taking an old woman’s wedding ring, to pay a debt to a cold-hearted son, the responses were priceless.

“Not my business,” one answered.

“Gotta do what you gotta do,” wrote another.

One Canadian woman pointed out, when told it was a social experiment, she was willing to buy the ring because: “My own mother was an alcoholic and did some unspeakable things.”

So fair is fair, was her judgment.

Only one person challenged the morality of the sale, sending off a scolding taunt.

“Wow. Priceless. Just the kind of son a mother could hope for.”

It came from a single mom with a 22-year-old son.

“The idea that a son or daughter could mature into such a schmuck was more than I could bare, actually,” she explained when told the ring was simply a test.

She was the only one — of dozens of replies that came in on the first day — to challenge the morals of a Canadian son with less than a heart of gold.

The mom who stood on higher ground? She lives in New York.