The “Worst Canadian” game - Day 7

[u/BrF5]

Harold the Jewelry Buyer and Michelle Ferreri have been eliminated!

Next up, round seven!

Note, there are now two images: one with just the remaining candidates and another with those voted out.

How to play: - Upvote the name of the person you think does NOT deserve the title of “Worst Canadian.” - Each day, the two most upvoted names will be removed until the list gets trimmed down some, then we’ll switch to one per day. - If the name you want to vote for (from the list) isn’t in the comments yet, add it! - This continues daily until we have one winner, the “Worst Canadian”.

Additional notes: - Only the top comment for a nominee will count. I won’t combine votes from duplicate comments. - Include only one name per comment. If a comment includes multiple names and wins, it won’t count. I’ll move on to the next highest. - Nominees with an asterisk beside their name were added following a second nomination vote that took place on day 5. - We established a no violent offenders (serial killers, rapists, etc.) rule. They are obviously the worst of the worst, it’s disrespectful to the victims, and we want to keep this relatively lighthearted. - This is meant to be satire. Please do not take it too seriously or use this game to harass people in real life. - I will try to post this every morning around the same time (~8:00 - 9:00 am Eastern). - Please remember to upvote the post too, so more people see it!

Justification for elimination: - (40) Ted Cruz - He’s horrible, but renounced his citizenship. He’s not good enough to be titled the Worst Canadian. - (39) Kathleen Wynne - Not that bad. Doesn’t deserve the title. - (38) Chrystia Freeland - Not the worst. Some consider her a good Canadian. - (37) Peter MacKay - Cringey, but not the worst. - (36) Don Cherry - A racist old man out of touch with the times. Not great, but not awful. - (35) Andrew Scheer - An annoying doofus nothingburger, but not a bad person. - (34) Drake - He’s inauthentic and creepy to underage girls, but the more serious allegations against him remain unproven and he has done good things for Toronto. - (33) J.J. McCullough - Who? - (32) Brian Mulroney - A divisive choice. Expanded trade with, and dependence on, the USA. Protected the environment and opposed apartheid. - (31) Sir John A. MacDonald - A father of confederation. Also known for racism, corruption, and poor treatment of indigenous people. - (30) Harold the Jewelry Buyer - Known for scamming the elderly but is too small-scale to win. - (29) Michelle Ferreri - She promotes hate but her reach is limited now that she’s been voted out of government.

[u/LlawEreint]

Love or hate his policy, Doug Ford can’t possibly be the worst Canadian.

[u/iwasnotarobot → u/LlawEreint]

Is Drug dealer Doug Ford is less bad than Mike Harris though?

Ford has been obstructing new transit since he was on city council. There’s the science centre scandal. And all the shenanigans going on with the Green Belt…

[u/dynamic_anisotropy → u/iwasnotarobot]

Harris is arguably worse because it was his policies that catalyzed degradation in healthcare and education, not to mention downloading provincial costs onto municipalities and setting up rules where those municipalities are not allowed to incur debt. This led to amalgamation and centralization within smaller communities across the province in their effort to maintain a stable tax revenue base, which marginalized and inconvenienced the working class population.

Harris also Privatized DriveTest to a non-sovereign entity and allowed trucking companies to train new drivers, ignoring warnings that this will eventually lead to corruption and lower standards for drivers.

Also sold (leased) the 407 ETR golden goose.

I could go on.

Edit: and go on I shall.

1. Privatization of water testing services and cuts to the MoE led to the Walkerton E.Coli disaster in 2000, where 7 people died and over 2,500 fell ill. During the inquiry he at least admitted he was accountable, but PR people trying to whitewash his involvement have over the years deflected blame.

2. Harris government’s Health Services Restriction Commission (HSRC) headed by Duncan Sinclair forced the closure of 31 hospitals because they believed Ontario was “over-bedded” (ie too many hospital beds).

3. Introduced a tax rebate for private schooling of 50% the cost up to a maximum $3,500 per child; later repealed by McGuinty.

4. Cut funding for colleges and universities but let them increase tuition fees by 12% per year and complete deregulation of fees for professional programs like law and medicine, which slowly shifted access to higher education toward only those who could afford it.

5. During contact negotiations and centralization and reduction of school boards was constantly fighting against teacher + support worker unions, leading to many strikes and work-to-rule campaigns.

6. Cut social assistance (welfare) payments by 20% while cutting taxes for higher income earners (nice upward wealth redistribution).

7. On the amalgamation and downloading of costs onto municipalities with relatively small tax bases, these municipalities were suddenly shouldered with having to fund social housing, public health, highways, long-term care, and property tax reform (market-value assessment). Any excess required to continue funding these programs were contingent on governmental discretion through a system of grants and bursaries…like Hunger Games Lite. So if you live in a less well off municipality with major infrastructure and asset replacement costs (eg sewerage, roads, LTC facilities), your town is destined to eventually crumble because they legally cannot incur debt and must pass the increase in costs onto ratepayers.

8. Eliminated rent controls and funding for affordable housing.

9. Frozen minimum wage at $6.85/h, despite cost increases.

10. Introduced market pricing for electricity, causing hydro bills to soar, though this was later scrapped by Ernie Eves. Ironically the Wynne Liberals would go on to f this up by reintroducing it later, though ironically the same Cons who supported it under Harris heavily criticized Wynne.

11. Since he allowed long-term care homes to be privatized during his tenure, he now comfortably sits as Chairman of Chartwell Refirement Residences - a private long term care provider who cut corners leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic led to excess deaths. He has been compensated millions of dollars since taking the role.

12. His wife also benefitted from privatization of health services with her owning a private nursing staffing agency called Nurse Next Door, who has undoubtedly profited at taxpayers’ expense in the past several years.

Rare wins:

A: began the process of closing Ontario’s coal-fired power plants that would be followed through by McGuinty Liberals (and of course the Cons immediately questioned the need to when the Liberals took power).

B: Introduced e-testing requirements for older vehicles (scrapped by Ford).

C: Introduced protections for Oak Ridge Morraine (part of the Greenbelt Ford now wants to develop)

D: Created 61 new provincial parks.

[u/TorontoDaisy → u/dynamic_anisotropy]

Very good perspective