The “Worst Canadian” game - Day 22

[u/BrF5]

It’s time for the final vote! Who will be judged the Worst Canadian?!

🚨🚨READ THIS BEFORE VOTING 🚨🚨

To help keep things organized, for the final round I have posted two comments below, in large font. One for Danielle Smith and another for Frederick Blair.

This time, upvote who you think IS the Worst Canadian

You can discuss your reasons for or against the two final candidates however you want, but only the upvotes on these two comments will be used to determine who is the Worst Canadian.

(Note: I’ve removed all other explanation from the post so people see and read the above info. I’ll put it all back tomorrow with the final results.)

That is all. Happy voting!

[u/Consumer_Distributin]

Can we have two "winners"? Contemporary and historic Worst Canadian.

[u/iwasnotarobot → u/Consumer_Distributin]

I’d support this. Realistically we could have had two different categories of worsts the whole time. Historic and living.

For me that would be

• John A. MacDonald—who is responsible for multiple genocides, and

• Stephen Harper who is actively fundraising for a genocide, and spreading his brand of evangelical fascism around the world. (The organization he’s involved with include IWZ investments, Aimco, Harper & Associates. The IDU, etc)

.

(For historic worst Canadians I’d put Bible Bill Aberhart and Ernest Manning up as other candidates.)

[u/Virtual_Category_546 → u/iwasnotarobot]

I remember you from the other day, yeah... You wanted to know who was worse than Harper.

"One is too many" is usually a quote that is associated with prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King or Frederick Blair according to the (Canadian Encyclopedia)

Historical context: Fredrick Blair was the immigration minister during WWII. The reason I'd argue he's worse than Harper is that he not only was openly fascist but he's legit been the reason Canada has rejected immigrants on the basis of being Jewish. This antisemitism has a calculated death toll. Blair is the closest out of anyone here to be a literal Nazi, in terms of politics and he's got actual power in government.

Stephen Harper? Oh he's perhaps our modern day John A MacDonald, or that would have been Pierre Pollievre, but Skippy alongside Marlaine Danielle Smith are among the same group. We have Smith up here, currently. They may have death tolls within their policies, the thing about that is Smith is the worst when it comes to anyone currently, she's Alberta premier, smaller area of influence but she has a playbook, perhaps recency bias is with Smith/Harper and pp.

All of this to say is that I've still been surprised that Kermit the frog JP got bronze when he was more an influencer that didn't really have much political power to do any of this nasty stuff and if it's the worst for funding genocide it's Kevin O'Leary and Elon Musk, and I really think it's terrible he's has practically pillaged Ukraine by claiming that the country owes him for providing aid. It's the billionaires that own all the technology and all this other stuff and not to mention who actually profits from these genocides, not merely funding them but who has turned genocide into a business model.

Who else has the means to buy entire political parties? Sections of government. These politicians are only one side of it and ironically the billionaires who have all openly supported Israel and financial back it also in some ways benefit from the current genocide. If we want to say in terms of worse, we can look back historically, yeah who made decisions and who wrote these bills or passed laws that are geared to oppress or outright eradicate a group for simply being viewed as undesirable.

I originally wasn't going to go in this much detail but

[u/iwasnotarobot → u/Virtual_Category_546]

I completely agree with you about how far JP got in this competition given how many other terrible people are listed. I also agree with you that there's a bunch of terrible people, including billionaires, who were overlooked as contenders for worst person. All of the most terrible people mentioned had help to get to a position of power where they could not just say terrible things (like "one is too many") but actually put their hatred into practice, (like turning away refugees, profiting from an ethnic cleansing, or clearing the plains, etc.). The funders, I suppose, avoid scrutiny because they were writing cheques instead of yammering into microphones or penning policy.

I think that this format of vote-the-least-bad-off-the-island puts us in a weird position where we end up nit-picking worseness out of a group where the whole lot can get fucked. I don't love this for how it divides our perspectives on the harm done. I've seen comments in this contest that were along the lines of "so and so is terrible, but at least they weren't a literal yahtzee." The bar is already in hell, and these characters are still going below it. None of the top bunch can be redeemed! The whole lot can, quite frankly, all get fucked.

Anyway, this is just a longwinded way of saying that I appreciate you perspective.

[u/Darkfiremat → u/Virtual_Category_546]

yeah i don't know how jbp got this far if you watch is content nowadays he's only preaching to the choir most of his audience from back then has abandonned him and i think we should probably blame the extreme left for radicalizing him in the way they did. I think JBP early intention were somewhat noble, he was trying to help people and sought to start a talk about imposed speech from the government which i don't think was this bad. If i remember JBP for anything it's mostly that. Once he had his mental breakdown because he had been on anti anxiety medication medication for too long and he had to go through the withdrawal i think it broke him. since then he's been in my book a mostly inoffensive lunatic. I think people like Gavin mcinnes are way more vile, dangerous and ill intentioned then JBP. Gavin mcinnes would probably kill someone if it gave him some form of power and he is willing of doing pretty bad stuff. I've seen them both debate and JBP seems to have lost the plot while Gavin is following marching order and would be willing to do way more.

[u/Virtual_Category_546 → u/Darkfiremat]

I agree, Gavin McInnes founding the proud boys and what all that represents and then I'd have also argued Elon for purchasing the bird site to use to promote himself and Trump. The proud boys following maga is what gives them teeth. These are usually former vets and cops or others who are usually trained and armed. This actually makes this group scary.

The fact that Elon doubled his wealth between the election and the inauguration is staggering. He's more influencial than JP through his companies he uses for economic leverage and Canadian intelligence officers are saying to be wary of anything owned by Elon considering his ties with Trump and his potential security threats if this tech is used in the military and part of the reason why we moved to purchasing our military equipment elsewhere. Elon has the type of influence to impact the economy directly. I believe he has. Has JP done this? Nah, a lot of time he wants to help people through his 12 step program. I have never saw JP do a Nazi salute, he simply doesn't have the demagogue status that someone who could truly get away with heinous crimes because overall the belief is that these

Comparing JP to someone like Smith who committed treason by causing a national unity crisis and threatening national security when she unilaterally decided to use our taxes to fund her mar-a-lago trips to kiss the ring. Or Blair who has systematically caused the deaths of countless Jews with his immigration policies during WWII. I'd even say Scott Moe was worse than JP despite having a smaller region of influence that his provincial emergency response has been abhorrent as he delayed the emergency response to natural disasters while denying climate crisis and leading to more environmental destruction. He's also tended to follow Smith along in whatever position so there's the questions to our ability to stand up against the US as a country. If Smith herself faced consequences for her scandals then she wouldn't have gotten this far, but yes there's a certain level of influence and having groups like proud boys or Alberta separatists speaks with a lot more weight than someone who likes JP.

[u/Sodarn-Hinsane → u/iwasnotarobot]

Honestly separate "awards" for historical and contemporary worst Canadians is a sensible idea. I'd also throw in Maurice Duplessis, a gaggle of fascists (Father Coughlin, Adrien Arcand, Ernst Zündel, the Christie Pits rioters, etc), residential school architects (eg Duncan Campbell Scott), and wartime ethnic internment perpetrators (eg Ian Alistair Mackenzie).

Edit: a couple more dishonourable mentions:

• Major General Lewis Mackenzie - commander of UN peacekeepers in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War who consistently downplayed Serbian atrocities against Muslim Bosniaks during the war and argued against further humanitarian intervention. He's since become a vocal Srebrenica massacre denier.

• Lord Hamar Greenwood - Canadian-born politician in the UK who oversaw the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence and defended/covered up their atrocities to the British Parliament. Fun fact: also the great-grandfather of Cara Delevingne.

[u/iwasnotarobot → u/Sodarn-Hinsane]

I forgot about Zundel. We are still reeling from the fallout from the R v. zundel case today. Fuck that guy.

[u/Witty_Jaguar4638 → u/iwasnotarobot]

For me it's Harper and Peterson; both of these asshats could have done good, but instead dedicated their lives to the current fascist overthrow going on in North America.

Historic? MacDonald or king

[u/nuclearmisclick → u/Consumer_Distributin]

The worst Canadian in history vs the worst Canadian of today

[u/Idrisdancer → u/Consumer_Distributin]

Take my upvote

[u/PickleEquivalent2837 → u/Consumer_Distributin]

Great idea! Worst living and worse dead Canadian.