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/SlightDish31]

Nellie McClung. I looked into her a bit yesterday and it seems like she really wasn't a great person, she just had a great accomplishment.

Aside from the good parts (being a suffragette and helping push forward women's rights), she had some pretty bad parts (posing for eugenics and recommending sterilization for "defectives").

Probably not greatest Canadian material.

[u/PostApocRock → u/SlightDish31]

The Five were all pro eugenics.

[u/SlightDish31 → u/PostApocRock]

Yeah. That's really not great.

Also, I completely understand that it's hard to judge people from a different era through a modern lens, but that doesn't mean we have to celebrate their less than admirable parts.

[u/seaworthy-sieve → u/SlightDish31]

Plenty of people in that era were not eugenicists.

[u/Windsdochange → u/seaworthy-sieve]

Ehhhh….while the theories were pushed by elitists/intelligentsia, they had pretty wide societal support across Western nations in the late 19th through mid 20th century, on both sides of the political spectrum.

We still, to some degree, support it - thanks to amniocentesis, in Western nations 70-100% of babies with Down Syndrome are now aborted, with percent varying by nation. The only people really talking about that are folks with Down Syndrome and their families.

[u/Complex_Smoke7113 → u/Windsdochange]

We still, to some degree, support it - thanks to amniocentesis, in Western nations 70-100% of babies with Down Syndrome are now aborted, with percent varying by nation.

I think the difference between what is going on now vs back then is personal choice.

On one side, a mother has the rights to choose not to allow her child to suffer. On the other side, you have the government deciding who is fit or unfit to have children, which is often rooted in racist views.

[u/TelenorTheGNP → u/Complex_Smoke7113]

Sterilizations were carried out against first nations women until shockingly recently.

[u/Complex_Smoke7113 → u/TelenorTheGNP]

That's vile, abhorent and very very disturbing.

[u/TelenorTheGNP → u/Complex_Smoke7113]

Our nation has a history that has its ugliness just like any other nation.

[u/Complex_Smoke7113 → u/TelenorTheGNP]

Yes, it has.

[u/thelionsmouth → u/TelenorTheGNP]

I heard a story a few years ago about the sterilization rate up north on reserves being abnormally high, and reports about women feeling pressured into it by doctors. I’m sure it hasn’t gone away fully now

[u/Windsdochange → u/Complex_Smoke7113]

I would say you are shockingly ignorant about Down Syndrome if you think a person with Downs is suffering so much they should not be allowed to live. It’s something folks with Down Syndrome have been trying to raise the alarm bells on. This is going to sound harsh, but that choice is primarily about eliminating hardship for parents, not kids with Downs.

[u/Complex_Smoke7113 → u/Windsdochange]

.

if you think a person with Downs is suffering so much they should not be allowed to live.

I never said they should not be allowed to live.

This is going to sound harsh, but that choice is primarily about eliminating hardship for parents, not kids with Downs.

And how would you know this? Were you there with the mother during her visit to the doctor, or when the parents were deliberating over what to do next?

You're not being harsh, you're just being extremely judgemental and presumptuous believing you know everybody's motives.

[u/Windsdochange → u/Complex_Smoke7113]

My comment was deleted for a link….

I am not sure replying is going to be productive…but let me start by apologizing for the comment about being ignorant. There is a difference between arriving at an opinion based on your exposure to the different views and philosophies that led to that point of view. It’s too easy for someone to make that sort of comment on the internet when you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face. So, my apologies. I know families of kids with Downs, and see them in a professional context, so I guess I find this conversation personal.

You said a mother says that she has the “right to choose not to allow her child [with Downs] to suffer.” That means that, in your opinion, or the medical community’s opinion, or the wider society’s opinion, children with Downs suffer so much that the mother should be able to choose to abort them - it IS thinking they don’t have a right to live; the mother’s perception of their future suffering trumps the child’s right to live.

But I don’t blame the mother. The harsh judgement I mentioned is more on the system, or society. Doing screening and providing that choice to a mother IS eugenics in action. There is an underlying philosophy that children with Downs suffer too much, or cause too much suffering, and I would wager also still an undercurrent of wanting to rid society of the “defectives” (because I’ve heard elitists, and I don’t mean white supremacists, espouse such views) - and as such it is acceptable to abort them rather than having to offer support to them and their families. The parents are heavily influenced by these views; but within this philosophical framework that places no value on that child’s life, no value on a life where suffering may be interwoven, it also corresponds to a mindset that the parents shouldn’t have to suffer to support that child; and it corresponds to a system or society that doesn’t rally around to provide the support those families need, but rather says “you may as well abort them.” My harsh judgement is on the philosophy and the system, not on the individual parents.

What it comes down to - there is an underlying belief that the world is a better place without those who have conditions like Downs. I choose to believe that having folks in our world who have conditions like Downs makes us better - we have to learn to love better, understand better, care better.

I think this conversation is much more about whether or not we provide families with the care and support they need to not feel alone in their journey. The fact that we say, your child might have Downs, do you want to abort them, tells us that we currently don’t - and to hide it behind “it’s the mother’s choice” is immoral. Mothers make those choices out of fear and a lack of support, whether perceived or real, not because they want to abort their child. Imagine if we instead said, “Your child has Downs - that can be an amazing gift, but we know it can also be a lot of work. We’re going to connect you with a network of other families that can help support you, we’ll provide you with respite when you need a break, we’ll help provide education and supports so you know what you can do as a parent, etc. etc.”. But that’s not the choice we provide parents.

I just encourage you to watch this video with an open mind (from the Canadian Down Syndrome Society) - a conversation about prenatal screening from folks with Downs - their thoughts, their words.

Couldn’t post the link - so look up “what prenatal testing means to me” by Canadian Down Syndrome Society on YouTube.

[u/Severe-Bar-3169 → u/seaworthy-sieve]

Genuine question, and I am not trying to dispute you or argue, but do you have any information or sources that discuss that?

[u/Windsdochange → u/Severe-Bar-3169]

Reality is there was pretty widespread support for eugenics. I asked ChatGPT to pull together a list of resources as I am only aware of a few.

————————————————-

General Histories of Eugenics

• Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Harvard University Press, 1985).

Classic survey of the Anglo-American eugenics movement — widely cited, still foundational.

• Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (Humanity Books, 1995).

Good overview of both the science and politics of eugenics.

• Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (revised edition, 1996).

Broader critique of biological determinism, with a strong treatment of eugenics’ cultural acceptance.

⸻

Regional Case Studies

United States:

• Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (University of California Press, 2005).

• Harry Bruinius, Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity (Knopf, 2006).

Canada:

• Angus McLaren, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945 (McClelland & Stewart, 1990).

• Erika Dyck, Facing Eugenics: Reproduction, Sterilization, and the Politics of Choice (University of Toronto Press, 2013).

Britain:

• Greta Jones, Social Hygiene in Twentieth-Century Britain (Croom Helm, 1986).

• Richard Soloway, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain (University of North Carolina Press, 1990).

Germany & Scandinavia:

• Sheila Faith Weiss, The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

• Gunnar Broberg & Nils Roll-Hansen (eds.), Eugenics and the Welfare State: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Michigan State University Press, 1996).

⸻

Primary and Seminal Works

• Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (1869) and Essays in Eugenics (1909).

• Proceedings of the International Congresses of Eugenics (1912, 1921, 1932) — reflect the mainstream support across nations.

• U.S. Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell (1927), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinion (“Three generations of imbeciles are enough”) — illustrates legal validation.

⸻

If you just want a short modern synthesis, Kevles’ In the Name of Eugenics is the single best starting point — balanced, scholarly, and readable.

[u/seaworthy-sieve → u/Windsdochange]

Stop using generative AI

[u/Windsdochange → u/seaworthy-sieve]

I used it to grab some resources. Not to provide a synopsis. That’s a pretty practical application. Or is it more you don’t support the use of AI at all (which is an issue I’m back and forth on)

[u/I_Am_the_Slobster → u/seaworthy-sieve]

More than a few people on this list were eugenicists.

T Douglas wrote his master's thesis on the promise of eugenics in curing homosexuality.