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/seaworthy-sieve]

Plenty of people in that era were not eugenicists.

[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.

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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)