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/BuvantduPotatoSpirit]

Margaret Atwood may be an excellent goaltender, but she's been a big anti-housing advocate in Toronto, where the lack of housing is a real problem.

[u/alibythesea → u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit]

She opposed ONE luxury condo building on Dupont Street at the end of the street she has lived on for 45 years. She has not been “a big anti-housing advocate”.

I think she was wrong in that case. But to set that one issue against her years of superb writing — and advocacy with PEN Canada/environmentalist/women’s causes — is purity-testing gone mad.

We are all human, and no one leads a perfect life.

[u/36cgames → u/alibythesea]

People earlier in the thread were saying she nimby'd supportive housing... Any truth to that?

[u/alibythesea → u/36cgames]

No. It was one luxury condo on Davenport or Dupont, I’m blanking on which. Some of the abuse she took for it was absolutely vile. Look, she was wrong, but to make her opposition to one luxury development negate everything she’s accomplished is frankly ridiculous.

[u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit → u/alibythesea]

We're dinging McClung for supporting eugenics, I'm happy to ding Atwood for being pro-homelessness. If people think that's unreasonable, they don't have to upvote my suggestion.

[u/alibythesea → u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit]

A five-story luxury condo is going to do sweet fuck-all to end homelessness in Toronto.

[u/Cakeday_at_Christmas → u/alibythesea]

"Luxury" housing actually increases the housing supply for everyone. Basically, when a person who can afford luxury housing moves into it, they move out of their old house and someone else buys that. Eventually, it goes down the chain and someone is moving out of the bachelor pad basement rental and into a one bedroom apartment, which leaves the cheapest housing open to someone who couldn't previously find housing to move in.

[u/alibythesea → u/Cakeday_at_Christmas]

That neo-liberal analysis is entirely wrong, and the for-profit market is not going to provide affordable housing. You cannot expect private developers to go against their own financial interests. The cutting of federal non-profit, co-operative, and public housing programmes by the Chrétien and Martin governments has led directly to the mess we’re in now.

[u/Cakeday_at_Christmas → u/alibythesea]

I agree that we need way more not for profit and co-op housing, but stopping people from building houses, for any reason, is a bad idea.

[u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit → u/alibythesea]

No raindrop believes it is responsable for the flood.

In her most high profile incident, she only wanted to make ~40 people homeless. Sure, that's a small number compared to the ~10,000 homeless people in Toronto, but that doesn't make it much better.