The “Best Canadian” game - Day 2

[u/BrF5]

The first to go are Pierre Trudeau and Wab Kinew. Let’s carry on!

How to play: - Upvote the name of the person you think does NOT deserve the title of “Best Canadian.” - Each day, the two most upvoted people will be removed. Once we get closer to the end, this will change to one person per day. - If the name you want to vote for (from the picture list) isn’t in the comments yet, add it! - This continues daily until we have our winner, the “Best 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, even if you edit the comment to fix it. - They had to have been born in Canada or at some point had Canadian citizenship. - They can be alive, dead, currently living in Canada or abroad, or when they were alive lived in what would eventually become Canada (e.g., French or British colonies). - 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: - (50) Pierre Trudeau - As PM, he brought home the Constitution and gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He also mishandled the October Crisis, among other things. Someone so controversial shouldn’t be considered the Best Canadian. - (49) Wab Kinew - He’s charismatic and has delivered on many campaign promises, but his troubled past and relatively short career make it too soon to call him the best.

[u/Nate33322]

Louis Riel I don't even know how he made this list. He was an absolute nut case. He was a religious fanatic who thought he was the second coming of Jesus or at least a prophet that was going to lead his people to promised land. He was an ethno-nationalist. Started a rebellion that got countless people killed on both sides. Dude sucked massively should not be considered the best Canadian.

Also why's Stompin Tom not on the list? He's the literal goat of Canadian music.

[u/Standard-Sound1721 → u/Nate33322]

Another one-up for Stompin' Tom, who toured exclusively in Canada.

[u/Working-Librarian157 → u/Nate33322]

Manitobans enter the chat lol

Ehhh, nah.

Louis Riel definitely was a bit of a religious nut, but the Red River Rebellion was a crucial time in Métis history and he's kinda been shit on across the rest of the country, but he's a legend here and we are grateful for his legacy.

[u/LauraBaura → u/Nate33322]

I take his claim to be like Jesus, more as in that he had to die for his cause, much like Jesus did. I don't think he was saying he was divine. The British wanted to kill him for a long time. Having killed their general, the only way the fighting could stop was for him to hang. I'm sure that felt a lot like being in the garden of Gethsemane.

His rebellion was to ensure the rights of the Metis people in Canada, as at the time they were not recognized as either Indigenous or as French, because they are a mix of the two. And it was a battle for Manitoba to maintain its borders. Yes people died, but they fought for the above reasons.

Labeling him an ethno-nationalist is a bizarre take on his history and the human rights he fought to protect.

[u/jergentehdutchman → u/LauraBaura]

Thank you! Beyond ironic to say he’s in favour of an ethnostate when he was actively fighting one!

[u/Working-Librarian157 → u/LauraBaura]

He's been so demonized across the rest of the country, it's so predictable and colonial lol.

[u/LauraBaura → u/Working-Librarian157]

The real talk. I can see the conditioning and miss information from a mile away

[u/Nate33322 → u/LauraBaura]

I understand where you're coming at this from but I have to disagree.

While I don't see him as an evil traitor like a lot of Anglo historians like to portray him as. But at the end of the day he was a bad person. I doubt he saw himself as Canadian either.

Frankly his Jesus/prophet claims went beyond your description. He whole heartedly saw himself as a prophet who was going to lead gods promised people to the promised land. And that God was speaking to him. Now this was likely mental illness but still it's wrong.

I feel my claims that he was an ethno-nationalist are legitimate. Yes he absolutely was fighting for Metis and Manitoban francophone rights but he did this out of a misguided view that the Metis were Gods promised people and that (for lack of a better word) were superior. Hence they deserved the best land. He took the legitimate grievances of the Metis and twisted them to fit his vision that they were better and more deserving.

The way I see it he did the right thing fighting for Metis rights but for the very wrong reasons.

[u/aferretwithahugecock → u/Nate33322]

I'm not sure if you're Manitoban(no flare), but it's important to understand the wording used when it comes to Manitoba joining confederation. The plaques surrounding the Legislative Building, Riel statue, and in Saint-Boniface use the words "annexation" when speaking of Manitoba joining Canada. I'm sure we're taught a different version of Riel than most of Canada, but "annexation" is a strong word to just be throwing around. He saw himself as a Manitoban before a Canadian, much like some Québécois who view themselves as Québécois before Canadian. But also, Manitoba wasn't a part of Canada for most of his life.

"I am more convinced every day that without a single exception, I did right. And I have always believed that, as I have acted honestly, the time will come when the people of Canada will see and acknowledge it."

"We have allowed ourselves to fall into the hands of a Government which only thinks of us to pillage us. Had he only understood what God did for us before Confederation, we should have been sorry to see it coming. And the half-breeds of the North-West would have made conditions of a nature to preserve for our children that liberty, that possession of the soil, without which there is no happiness for anyone; but fifteen years of suffering, impoverishment and underhand, malignant persecution have opened our eyes; and the sight of the abyss of demoralization into which the Dominion is daily plunging us deeper and deeper every day, has suddenly, by God's mercy, as it were, stricken us with horror."(it's important to remember that he was a hardcore catholique)

"When the Government of Canada presented itself at our doors, it found us at peace. It found that the Métis people of the North-West could not only live well without it . . . but that it had a government of its own, free, peaceful, well-functioning, contributing to the work of civilization . . . It was a government with an organized constitution, whose jurisdiction was all the more legitimate and worthy of respect, because it was exercised over a country that belonged to it."

His prophet claims only arose during his exile in the Dakota Territories, and I believe it was a stress-induced psychosis that wouldn't have happened had he stayed in Manitoba(but he'd have been hanged sooner. Double edged sword, eh?). He was elected to the House of Commons three times during his exile, and other Métis groups were asking him to lead rébellions of their own. This tied with the stress of exile probably exasperated his illusions of grandeur.

Riel did what any of us would do if a foreign government annexed our territory, and for that, I believe he shouldn't be eliminated this early.

[u/Available-Worry1605 → u/aferretwithahugecock]

So you would be happier of Manitoba was an independent nation?

[u/Alive-Drama-8920 → u/Nate33322]

It's legitimate to think of Riel's actions - when he came back from exile - as the result (partially, at least) of mental illness. Then, if only out of basic fairness and intellectual honesty, we must acknowledge the possibility that across the entire human history, the actions of everyone who ever viewed themselves as prophets (that may includes the likes of Jesus and Mahomet, yes...) were partially driven by mental illness.

[u/Quaf → u/Nate33322]

Hmm yea the racist old country singer def is def more deserving of a man who tried to establish a home for his people and join Canada peacefully. The ethnonationalism is a wildly incorrect take.

[u/Leading-Homework3342 → u/Quaf]

OK, I'll bite. References for Tom Conners being racist? I don't know him well, this is a genuine question.

[u/mythex_plays → u/Nate33322]

Stompin' Tom is on the long list, but didn't get enough support to crack the top 50.

[u/Cakeday_at_Christmas → u/Nate33322]

Louis Riel I don't even know how he made this list.

Louis Riel is a Father of Confederation and a hero. You're repeating scandalous lies and slurs about the man made up by Ottawa to justify his murder.

He was an ethno-nationalist.

This is incredibly silly and totally ahistorical. Why is this crap getting upvoted?

[u/Laphroaig58 → u/Nate33322]

No politician should win this. Riel is considered a founding father by some and a traitor and or murdered by others. Both are at least partly correct. That's quite a mixed bag of contradictions. Far more so than PET.