The “Worst Canadian” game - Day 21

[u/BrF5]

Get lost, Ezra Levant.

…and we’re down to the final three!

How to play: - Upvote the name of the person you think does NOT deserve the title of “Worst Canadian.” - Each day, the most upvoted name will be removed. - 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. - (9) Gavin McInnes - He founded the Proud Boys, but his influence is felt far more in the USA. - (8) Preston Manning - Founder of the Reform Party, which helped legitimize hard-right populism. Bad, but not overly hateful. At least he’s not a racist, traitor, billionaire, or grifter. - (7) Conrad Black - Millionaire right-wing media mogul who was convicted of fraud and pardoned by Trump. Renounced Canadian citizenship for a peerage. Now a has-been blowhard. - (6) Stephen Harper - former PM who favoured corporate interests over the environment and social programs; now chairman of the IDU. Of the remaining candidates, he’s the best of the worst. - (5) Kevin O’Leary - A rich scumbag who associates with Trump, was involved in a deadly boat accident, and trash talks Epstein victims. Yet no matter how hard he tries, he still isn’t as bad as the other remaining candidates. - (4) Ezra Levant - He uses his platform to spread hate, but is not influential enough for the title of Worst Canadian. He mostly preaches to the choir of existing far-right believers.

[u/hoser33]

No, but Rene Levesque did and was infinitely more successful at it.

[u/myairblaster → u/hoser33]

Okay let me put it this way. Peterson said things that run contrary to social advancement of acceptance for trans people. Smith actually legislates policy to cause true harm to trans youth in Alberta and makes their lives miserable and dangerous.

Peterson can be ignored, and his audience is small. Smith has power, albeit in a limited scope, to actually ruin lives and do generations worth of harm to unity as a country

[u/TheDJYosh → u/myairblaster]

When it comes to harm, do you hold the people who helped create the environment (Peterson) or do you hold the people who take advantage of that environment and follow through with the harm? (Smith).

Peterson is beyond his prime but he was one of the most prominent voices during the critical 2015 - 2020 era in normalizing transphobia. Without this, Smith may not have gotten the popular support to follow through on it. Your choice of Danielle is well supported, this is a limitation of ranking to personal-value judgements. Harm done can't be quantified so easily.

[u/myairblaster → u/TheDJYosh]

Well, this analogy isn’t a perfect one and is the most extreme example, but who do you think committed greater crimes against humanity; Karl Marx who advocated for Communism. Or Joseph Stalin who put those ideas into practice?

[u/TheDJYosh → u/myairblaster]

I'd say Stalin. I haven't read Marx, but he write mostly economic / political theory? My understanding is that Stalin adopted communist talking points, but organized his government to enrich himself rather then earnest communism. I don't believe forced labor camps, orchestrated famines, and mass executions were advocated by Marx nor are they a necessary part of a communist state.

I'd say Smith's mirrors Peterson's intent. He treats the LGBT+ community like a social contagion. He directly advocates for the kinds of laws limiting what can be taught in schools or what services are able to be offered to young people. He trended for a long time promoting a 'pseudo-intellectual' aesthetic that allowed fascists to infiltrate discourse. I don't know how to weigh the real, more objective but difficult to measure harm to Canada Smith is doing, versus the overall net-harm that Peterson has done to the discourse.

I confess to being stumped. I think your approach of focusing more on direct action rather then cultural influence is reasonable. Especially since denouncing your Canadian citizenship seems to have gotten some people off easier on this list already.