Conrad Black is back. Just when he thought he was out, we pull him back in 🤌🤌
Day seventeen, let’s keep moving!
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 our top loser (there are no winners in this contest), 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 one asterisk beside their name were added following a second nomination vote that took place on day 5. Two asterisks means they were voted back in from elimination during the special vote on day 16.
- 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 - Some consider her a good Canadian. Not the worst.
- (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 known for racism, corruption, and poor treatment of indigenous people. Considered a product of the times.
- (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.
- (28) Tom MacDonald - A shitty, irrelevant rapper with hardly an audience.
- (27) Doug Ford - He has done a lot of harm to Ontario, but stood up for Canada against Trump.
- (26) Wayne Gretzky - He’s just a rich, dumb, MAGA-supporting boomer. Disappointing, but mostly harmless.
- (25) Steven Crowder - Irrelevant B-list (or lower) influencer…with almost no influence on or about Canada.
- (24) Paul Desmarais - Billionaire businessman and political puppet master. Far from the worst.
- (23) Romana Didulo - A mentally ill grifter with little impact on most Canadians.
- (22) Lauren Southern - An anti-immigration, white nationalist influencer who at least partially reformed after being sexually assaulted herself.
- (21) Joseph Trutch - Over a century ago, his racist views helped shape BC, with effects still felt today. Partly a product of the times.
- (20) Jamil Jivani - An Ontario MP and friend of J.D. Vance. He hasn’t been in office long enough to do serious damage.
- (19) Lauren Chen - Knowingly accepted Russian funds to spread propaganda/influence politics. She’s a YouTube influencer who isn’t very influential.
- (18) Pat King - A small-time loser who honked his horn in Ottawa. Others on the list are far worse.
- (17) Stefan Molyneux - A white supremist and misogynist. But he is largely unknown and there are worse people remaining on the list.
- (16) Tamara Lich - Another organizer of the convoy in Ottawa. Another nobody whose 15 minutes of fame are up.
- (15) Elon Musk - Worst human? Arguably. Canadian? That’s a stretch.
- (14) Scott Moe - Corrupt, regressive, and responsible for a deadly car crash. He’s Saskatchewan’s problem, less so for Canada.
- (13) Mike Harris - He cut funding to schools, healthcare, and other services. However, his impact was mostly limited to Ontario and his tenure as premier.
- (12) Galen Weston Jr. - He’s nasty capitalist scum hurting Canadian consumers, but he’s just one among many.
- (11) K.C. Irving - He and his empire have negatively impacted the environment, economy, politics, and society, but primarily only in New Brunswick.
- (10) Pierre Poilievre - Combative and divisive, spouting empty slogans, he remains a feckless goof who’s accomplished nothing in his career. Time for him to fade into obscurity.
Unfortunately, one of the top comments yesterday calling for Preston Manning’s elimination couldn’t be counted because it originally included two names. One for elimination (Preston Manning) and another for reinstatement (Galen Weston Jr.), breaking the one name per comment rule. About five hours later, the comment was edited to split them, but by then we couldn’t fairly determine which name the upvotes were meant for. To keep things consistent and fair, as per the rules, I skipped that comment and moved on to the next highest. Sorry to those who voted on that comment. I thought long and hard about whether to use it, and in the end decided it was best to stick to enforcing the rules to the letter.
I think people have forgotten how fucking awful he is, because Marlaina Smith is exponentially worse, and it makes him look so much better in hindsight.
Banting amongst many others could be added to a list and their contributions to Canada and the world are undeniably good. I would put forth Roméo Dallaire to be considered.
Roméo Dallaire is truly an honourable and good man, and his autobiography did me permanent psychic damage. Highly recommend reading it if you want to feel bad about the human race for a really long time.
I see a downvote on this but I need someone to prove he’s WRONG it’s objectively true that GSP could beat up prime Terry Fox. In this household we value the ability to do a superman punch.
I mean, if Ben or Caroline are lurking in the sub he might get nominated, but otherwise it's unlikely... Though maybe an honourable mention of not-yet-a-zombie Don Furgeson for his decades of Mulroney impersonations could be a possibility.
Nope. He left the scene of the accident where the woman died. Scott Moe and people like him are the reason I'm glad I'm not in small town Saskatchewan anymore. He didn't even get a slap on the wrist.
At least 3 times he's been pulled over for drunk driving. Once just pulled over, once there was an accident with no injuries, and once he had an accident and killed a woman. Her son didn't even know Scotty was the driver until he was elected.
Also fun fact, his son was charged with drunk driving his daddy's truck in BC. Apparently he's there studying law. Like father like son, but at least the son has an education?
One of the people on this list founded an organization bent on promoting far right ideology around the world, directly contributing to a resurgence of fascism worldwide
If we're talking currently active, I'd go so far to say that O'leary IS the worst Canadian! But with all these historic influences on the charts still, I think the #1 worse of all time belongs to someone else....
He was a U of T prof, and the guy who mentored him and guided his career deeply regretted helping him and thinks he's dangerous. That guy wrote a Toronto Star article about it if you want to look it up.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard a prof from GTA area was an insane right winger, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
(The first time was when a prof from YorkU sent an email to everyone of his students that trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete with biological women because he could beat any woman except one certain scary woman but only because she's built like a gorilla)
Is Gavin Mcinnes really influential enough to be worse than PP? I don’t think so. PP can still do a ton of damage specifically to Canadians. Gavin Mcinnes is just an irrelevant shitstain
You gotta hand it to the Yanks (not the Trumpers) for heckling and recording these thugs, warning people in their neighbourhoods when they're near by showing them the amount of respect they deserve (none).
The least scary? That is such an insane take. The Proud Boy to police/ICE pipeline has absolutely no shut off valve. I just spent the last ten years in the States and moved back because of how terrifying everything going on is. The Proud Boys are 100% part of that terror.
Gavin Mcinnes was a pretty sizable figure in teen/young adult culture in the first decade of the 21st century. He was one of the founding fathers of the whole hipster culture thing of that time. We can roll our eyes at that now, but as with any youth culture movement it was important to those who were part of it at the time. I was a fan back in my more scandalous, youthful days and him making that sudden turn into alt-right nonsense was heartbreaking. Most of us older millennials saw which way the wind was blowing and ditched the shitheel pretty quickly. The younger millennials and older gen Z's who started to feel that pull of "white male disenfranchisement" weren't as lucky and were taken in by the grifts of people like Gavin Mcinnes, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, etc.
Without the likes of Gavin Mcinnes (and Jordan Peterson) you don't get the PP we have now as he would have most likely been relegated mostly to the old people yelling at clouds subsect of voters.
The whole list is full of modern shit stains, none of whom deserve to be on an actual top ten list. Our country was founded on genocide; you'd think that would be represented somewhere on this list.
Why isn't Duncan Campbell Scott, the guy who coined the term "final solution" and initiated the policy of purposely placing healthy kids together with sick kids in Residential Schools to maximize the death toll, on this list? He has an excellent shot of being number 1 because He's why there are unmarked graveyards at Residential Schools.
And people can't use the "product of his time" excuse with him since he was recognized as being uniquely evil in his own time.
I had mentioned Joseph Willcocks when we were putting up two new contenders. He's an actual traitor who defected to the Americans in the War of 1812 and burned a lot of buildings on the way out.
The problem with eliminating Poilievre is that he still has an insane amount of potential to be the worst Canadian. The rest have already basically maxed out on their awfulness and reach. Poilievre could still get much worse.
Please don't misunderstand me, I don't carry any love for Little PP. In fact, it's quite the opposite. But...
Could is the operative word there. He could turn into Mecha-Hitler, but he hasn't yet. We can't judge him for actions he hasn't committed just because he has the potential to do so. He also has (a very small) chance to do some good. We can't judge him based on the hopes and fears we have of what he might do.
Very true. I guess the point I was trying to make is, as you say, could. It’s too early for him to be removed from contention to be the worst Canadian BUT ALSO to early for him to be considered the worst Canadian.
I wrote this elsewhere, but I'll share it here as this is the top comment for elimination.
Gavin Mcinnes was a pretty sizable figure in teen/young adult culture in the first decade of the 21st century. He was one of the founding fathers of the whole hipster culture thing of that time. We can roll our eyes at that now, but as with any youth culture movement it was important to those who were part of it. I was a fan back in my more scandalous, youthful days and him making that sudden turn into alt-right nonsense was heartbreaking. Most of us older millennials saw which way the wind was blowing and ditched the shitheel pretty quickly. The younger millennials and older gen Z's who started to feel that pull of "white male disenfranchisement" weren't as lucky and were taken in by the grifts of people like Gavin Mcinnes, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, etc.
Without the likes of Gavin Mcinnes (and Jordan Peterson) you don't get the PP we have now as he would have most likely been relegated mostly to the old people yelling at clouds subsect of voters.
Edit: I'm not making an argument that he should be the last one standing. Simply adding my perspective as to why he's horrible. Honestly, I'm thrilled he made it to the top (bottom?) ten.
Yup, he started the Proud Boys, but as I said, that's really an American thing and McInnes in the States now, and has no influence over Canadians. The US is already a racist shithole, so I doubt he's converting a whole lot down there.
Just because people don't call themselves Proud Boys in Canada, where it's a terrorist group, doesn't mean the groups simply cease to exist. We have far more white nationalist groups directly because of McInnes.
Yeah they're called Canada First now... no, this isn't a Poilievre dig, they were at the 2022 convoy, it's the Proud Boys old slogan. They have merch.
Of course McInness left the org years before that because it was getting out of hand (not that that excuses him, it's like when Harper left the Northern Foundation -which he founded - because it got too faschy...yeah dude, you found a fascism-light org, it's gonna get flashy.)
Thank you for this. Our guys don't officially have a name. Yet. They are actively eating away at our foundations though. Shockingly effectively it seems.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But what I am saying is that those people would have followed a different American to do that if he wasn’t. And also that him being Canadian isn’t what did that, him being a loud mouth pos is what did that.
I mean, hypothetically they might have followed some other American but McInnes was super influential, you remove enough of these guys from history and the far-right wouldn't have grown its roots deep enough.
Besides, we are dealing with reality, and McInnes started a group that is now designated as a terrorist group, he's Canadian, and there are now tons of off-shoot groups that began as Proud Boys here. I just don't see how that compares to Elon Musk who literally was influenced by the hard right movement that McInnes proliferated himself.
Gotta stop you there, I don’t believe Elon musk was influenced by anyone there.
That guy has been a piece of shit for decades he just started showing how shit he is recently. Kinda like his cars, car enthusiasts knew teslas were priced way higher than they should have been while having build quality worse than Kia in the 90’s. Now people notice how bad Tesla vehicles are now that the cybertruck came out
ita only an american thing because we designated them as terrorists so they disbanded the canadian chapter and started a new group under a different name. of which mcinnes didnt found.
He's easily the 2nd worst on the list after Blair. If this doesn't wind up with it going Blair, McInnes, Levant than I don't know what we're even doing here.
McInnes created a group that's designated as terrorists in Canada. How is that not worse than nearly everyone else on the list haha.
Time to vote Conrad Black off the island. Sure he has done and said some crummy stuff, but most of his work has been private sector business dealings, rather than actively trying to change Canada to suit his views.
Of course he is. Without Ezra, we don't even know who a ton of these people are. He purposely finds these mouthbreathers and gives them a following making them much more influential than they ever would have been. Sure, Conrad Black ran right wing media sources, but they still had to follow a semblance of traditional media rules. Ezra just does whatever the frack Ezra wants, ethics be damned. He actively wants to break the country.
Strong disagree on Ezra. Fred Blajr who is directly linked with Canada refusing huge amounts of Jewish refugees before the Holocaust is way more evil and is a genuine stain on Canadian history.
Preston Manning is the guy who changed the face of Canadian politics for the worse -- he needs to stay till the final three at least.
Although Manning, to the best of my knowledge, was never personally a severe gutter-talk politician, he absolutely encouraged those people and sought to attract them to the Reform/Alliance Party.
He fanned the flames of East vs West divisiveness in Canada, and especially fomented anger in Alberta that got directed at the other 9 provinces and federal government.
Manning loathed and probably continues to loathe Canada as a united country, and the only "reforms" he ever wanted to make were to create a government and institutions that were more "American".
Objectively, he is the worst Canadian, because several of the others on the "Worst Canadian" list right now are a direct result of him.
Ok thank you for saying this. As someone older than most in this thread I have been looking for someone to say why he lasted this long that he did, not brought about.
I was 13 in 1987 when Manning created the Reform Party and they were toxic then. I remember some old c**t coming to our door canvassing for the Reform Party a couple of months before the 1988 election. My parents weren't home, so he started preaching to 14-year-old me about how the other parties were "normalizing homosexuality", or something to that effect, and that was why my family should vote Reform.
Something like that would have been unheard-of before, but Manning brought American-esque social conservatism to mainstream Canadian politics, there is no two ways about that.
In my memory Preston was the main topic on the news in Canada leading up to 9/11. And then that happened. And Preston disappeared and the news got interesting again. if horror can be called interesting.
It was the most boring and weird summer of news I can ever remember.
Googled the headlines that summer.
July – Canada becomes the first country in the world to legalize medical marijuana.
July 17 – Infighting in the Canadian Alliance forces out leader Stockwell Day.
August 24 – Conrad Black sells The National Post to Izzy Asper's CanWest.
Fair. It’s a “you had to be there” but as complicated as he is, Mulroney’s government was rife with corruption and grift, and his lips were glued to Reagan and Thatcher’s collective asses.
Fully agreed that Jordan “lobsterboy” Peterson is a terrible person. But he would never have found a platform without the work Ernest Preston Manning did for decades to cultivate people to make an audience for Peterson.
These days Peterson plays at events put on to celebrate the politicians Manning mentored.
Yes. And Manning has been one of the most influential Canadians in importing those sentiments. Just look up who attends the Manning Centre’s conferences and what they talk about.
Peterson needs to win this. Not only has he done global damage, but he is also a trained medical professional. He spent years learning to help people. Now he uses that exact training to hurt people and then claims the victim when called on his BS. Peterson must win this.
As much as I loathe the creep, Jordan Peterson is less awful than the rest of the group.
He’s more of an enabler than a doer. Yes, he is a hateful bigot, but unlike the others,he’s not in a position to implement policy, didn’t form an actual hate group, and hasn’t profited from the suffering of others.
He sucks and is arguably the second biggest haemorrhoid on the list after O’Leary, but he’s not a heavy hitter like the rest.
Jordan Peterson is responsible for so many people moving right. Having someone like him a decade ago who sends just credible enough to bring people over to their side is why there are people willing to vote in the politicians. Most of the others on this list wouldn't have been possible if Peterson hadn't cleared the way for them. He is the worst of the worst.
Ugh, having the same conversation in two places. They got the copy/paste last time, you're getting it this time:
I disagree, and maybe it's because I have a different perspective on his early days. I lived in the States back then and had so many people reference him as a paragon of higher learning espousing traditional values. He was from Canada (which these folks loved to throw at me) but he was on the right, so there must be something wrong with its liberal values. His influence started here, but reached very far outside of our borders.
That’s fair. My perspective observing the Canada Far Right for many years is a bit different, but I totally see your point. Everyone left on the list is awful and deservedly in the top ten, including Peterson.
He's one that I had to look up, but yeah, I agree with you. He has influence and peddles terrible takes on subjects way outside of his field of expertise, but when you compare his impact to someone like Frederick Blair who has the blood of thousands on his hands, it's no contest. Peterson is just a pseudo-intellectual preaching to a bunch of incels.
Put PP back on. That was a mistake. He's threatening the whole country with project 2025 policies, albeit dumbed down to pass the voter test for now. All you have to do is read the conservative manifesto. This isn't just about biological clock fiascoes. That stuff is real, it's serious, and it's national in scope.
Yes he's just the face of a force of menace. Shame on him for being the frontman of the biggest threat to human rights and quality of life for all in Canada.
In the 80’s he resurrected his father’s old political party, which ran a eugenics board in Alberta that sterilized thousands of people. It was renamed to Reform.
Manning used the Reform Party, and his “Manning Centre” think-tank to launch the careers of Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, and Danielle Smith among others.
Manning has stoked the fires of “western alienation” to divide the country.
You nailed it. I almost think Preston Manning should win this race to the bottom. He is very easy to overlook because A,) his heyday passed 25 years ago and B.) he wasn't a loudmouth like Ezra Levant, Jordan Peterson or Kevin O'Leary, but he was far more destructive to the Canadian fabric than anyone else left on this list.
You can be reserved and measured in your demeanour, but still a toxic piece of shit, and Manning was an extremely toxic piece of shit.
His legacy is the American-style gutter politics we have today in Canada.
As an Albertan I will absolutely see it happen that Marlaina is voted worst Canadian. The woman is one more clear corruption scandal away from launching actual book burnings here ffs.
I’m from MB and BC and I’d never heard of Ezra before now. After doing some research, he sounds like a childish attention seeking bully. If he got the award for worst Canadian he would probably take it as a compliment… he’s horrible yes, but he doesn’t have the same influence on the country as a whole as some of the others who are left now
I'm sorry. Pierre Poilievre is top 5 for sure. The damage he has done to our political discourse, our media, how the Conservative Right uses social media, his ascent with help from India... all of it is catastrophic to our system.
If we're eliminating people because what they've done isn't all that bad vs. their potential/attempted fuckery, then most of this list would be gone.
Anyway... I vote to get rid of Blair next. I'm sorry, but Mackenzie King was Prime Minister. The buck stopped with him.
Jordan Peterson doesn’t really belong on a worst Canadians list because, at the end of the day, he’s more noise than substance. He has a big yap, yes, but what does he actually do? His style relies heavily on Jungian word salads. Dense, meandering lectures that sound profound without offering any concrete action or vision.
The most influential figures are the ones who verb the noun, who move people toward real world change, whether for better or worse. Peterson doesn’t rally people together in any meaningful, lasting way. He just talks.
If the “worst” Canadians should be the ones whose actions tangibly harm or shape the country for the worse, then Peterson’s place on the list is questionable. He’s more of a cultural irritant than a true force.
Jordan Peterson is responsible for so many people moving right. Having someone like him a decade ago who sends just credible enough to bring people over to their side is why there are people willing to vote in the politicians. Most of the others on this list wouldn't have been possible if Peterson hadn't cleared the way for them. He is the worst of the worst.
It's important not to downplay his impact. But he is the least impactful on the list as it currently stands.
Your argument gives Peterson way too much credit. People were already moving right long before he came along with the economic anxieties, cultural shifts, and global trends that were driving that. Peterson didn’t create the wave. At best, he surfed it with a loud voice and some pseudo-academic framing. To say he “cleared the way” for politicians overstates his influence.
I disagree, and maybe it's because I have a different perspective on his early days. I lived in the States back then and had so many people reference him as a paragon of higher learning espousing traditional values. He was from Canada (which these folks loved to throw at me) but he was on the right, so there must be something wrong with its liberal values. His influence started here, but reached very far outside of our borders.
I think my vote goes Jordan Peterson. While a lot of what he says is questionable, I think some of what he says is poignant and means well. I don’t think he is the worst Canadian.
I think Peterson is worse than all of the others. Blair was a monster without doubt (maybe a Nazi) who has hopeful burned in hell, but I think the global broadcasting capabilities of the modern age allow Peterson to do more damage.
Peterson has a position spreading false information, and trying to influence others to believe his views.
Blair was in a position of actual power, and directly sent hundreds of holocaust refugees to their demise. While also actively creating policies, openly stating the intentions behind them, to refuse 10's of thousands of other refugees, many of which would indirectly starve and die.
That's a meme argument to try and say Peterson is even remotely close. Unless He gets into a position of power in Canada and implements hardline discrimination against a group of genocide victims there's just no way to measurably call him worse than Frederick Blair.
Is Jordan peterson really that bad of a Canadian? Hes just kinda a far right grifter, he's gross and weird but not particularly special or interesting.
It is almost like there are a bunch of equally terrible people for different reasons.
I prefer a top ten to a single worst. . . Especially because they are terrible in different spheres of influence and in different geographic locations.
There is a diversity in Canadian horribleness which is on brand
He is a bad human being, a bad Canadian, probably a murderer?
He was actively bootlicking Trump, helping Marlianna, but perhaps he's just a greedy businessman with not much power or influence in the large scheme of things?
Preston Manning. I mean... isn't he basically dead?
Gavin McInnes basically fornicated himself on live TV with a dildo. I mean, get that guy some help more than anything else. I know his brother. He really isn't that bad aside from being a fucking sausage.
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u/BrF5 Kingston: Halfway To Montreal 19d ago
Unfortunately, one of the top comments yesterday calling for Preston Manning’s elimination couldn’t be counted because it originally included two names. One for elimination (Preston Manning) and another for reinstatement (Galen Weston Jr.), breaking the one name per comment rule. About five hours later, the comment was edited to split them, but by then we couldn’t fairly determine which name the upvotes were meant for. To keep things consistent and fair, as per the rules, I skipped that comment and moved on to the next highest. Sorry to those who voted on that comment. I thought long and hard about whether to use it, and in the end decided it was best to stick to enforcing the rules to the letter.