allows moment for giggles, titters, guffaws, chuckles, and hoots of laughter to subside
In all seriousness, my vote goes to Robert Picton. Yours?
My vote goes to Michael Bolton. Runner up: Alanis Morrisette. You all have some apologizing to do.
Marty McSorley?
Maybe I’m thinking too small.
Snidely Whiplash?
Michael Bolton is not Canadian. Don’t try and blame that on us.
Anyways, back to the real question, I’m not going to touch current/ex-Prime Ministers…
René Lévesque
Marc Lepine
Conrad Black
Honorable Mentions (Hockey related):
Harold Ballard
Peter Pocklington
Alan Eagleson
I was about to ask why not Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, but Pickton does seem to have a higher body count.
May I be the first to nominate Celine Dion? :rolleyes:
As Picton has yet to have his day in court it would be distinctly un-Canadian to include him. As Karla is very much in the news due to her impending release I would have to go with Bernardo as #1 and Karla as #2. The gut wrenching torment the French and Mahaffy families had to endure while listening to their daughters videotaped torment in court is unimaginable. The fact that these tapes were made for the sexual gratification of the tormentors combined with Karla’s distinct lack of remorse easily puts them at 1 and 2 in my book. Number 3 is a tie with every single Prime Minister since confederation.
And in any case, I’ve always found it amusing that we’re somehow responsible when Americans are buying ten times as many of our suppossed crimes against music than we are. We made them internationally famous? Whoa-ho-hold the blame train one dang moment.
On a slight more serious train of thought, Pickton and/or Bernardo aren’t bad choices, but they sort of lack a pizazz. Yes, they killed a lot of people, but they didn’t really harm Canada in any considerable way.
A good trio might be the three Quebecers who tried the hardest to split up the country, Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard.
Huh, I always thought he was, but IMDB says he was born in Connecticut. Sorry bout that.
Well, “worst” is hard to say, but the drafters of the Sexual Sterilization Act would have to be up there. And, even though he was born in England, Charles Lawrence deserves mention for his expulsion of the Acadians.
Maybe c e was thinking of Michael Bublé.
My ignorance is showing, but why pick the Quebec separatists but not Louis Riel?
Riel has been sanitzed and is now considered “great”
It would be considered racist to put him on the list now.
I think hanging was too good for him myself.
I certainly considered him. I think he’s far too lionized. It’s mitigated somewhat by the fact that the Metis were getting screwed.
Pathetic! [Dr. Evil]You Canadians are the Diet Coke of evil.[/Dr. Evil]
I don’t think he is categorized as great, he certainly wasn’t when I studied about him in school. I knew all the crazy stuff like him thinking he was on a divine mission from God and so forth. Controversial is probably the best way to describe his impact on Canadian history.
Well, he was placed at #11 on the recent Greatest Canadian contest, so there certainly are those who think he’s all that and a bowl of poutine.
Joachim von Ribbentrop lived in Canada for some years before WWI.
I would imagine the worst Canadian would be the one who is / was the worst at being Canadian. One of the best Canadians by this standard is probably Laura Secord, who by spying on American Troops in the 19th century who were plotting a surprise attack, and then taking a perilous journey across wild forested land alone and unaided, warned the british and the impending attack was thus thwarted. She therefore may be responsible for keeping the border where it is now, instead of 100 miles to the north, which is also where the vast majority of the Canadian population now resides.
Now the worst, by that same standard, might be someone who may have sold us out as a nation, really made life worse for most canadians or grossly misrepresented us to our great detriment…and other than politicians (who we can ignore because they pretty much cancel out in good vs bad) I cant really think of anyone in particular…but perhaps some of my fellow countrymen can help out?
I can tell you some of the worst Canadians I know are those who speak badly(and generally) of our neighbours to the south, where some of the most intelligent, compassionate and kind people I have ever met reside.
:rolleyes:
Come on you people. You are asked who is the worst Canadian. That is, the person in Canada who had the single most negative impact on the world. You could name mass murderers. You could name war criminals (I can’t, but I’m sure there are). There are a lot of people you could name, but some of you chose to name… politicians you happen to disagree with, but who are otherwise almost unimportant in the grand scheme of things? (i.e. Lévesque, Bouchard and Parizeau)
Yes, I know that unlike here, the idea of Québec independence is not seem as a legitimate political opinion where you are, it’s rather seen as tantamount to treason. I disagree, but I can accept that. But at least you could try to think about the actual negative importance these three people have had on the world (for example, how many people did they kill?) and realise that you’re just talking out of spite.
My personal opinion of these guys: Lévesque, I think, was absolutely fantastic for Québec. One of our greatest politicians. He was part of Lesage’s team in the 60s who helped bring Québec in the 20th century (so to speak). Then, he started to think that it would be better for the province to become an independent country, and started to work toward that goal, but when most voters decided that they didn’t want to follow him there, he accepted the result and was even willing to work with people like Mulroney who wanted to modify Canada’s dynamic. That didn’t work, but he tried. I know he’s not perfect (I’m sure English Quebecers think some of the laws passed by his government were discriminatory), but I still think he’s great. Oh, yeah, and about my question about how many people they killed, he did accidentally kill an homeless man. Sorry.
Parizeau: I dislike him for some reason. He seems arrogant and maybe even slightly bigoted, but I don’t think he had a major negative influence on anything. As for Bouchard, I don’t think much of him either way. I know he’s been portrayed in some English-Canadian media as the charismatic, psychopathic puppet master machiavelically manipulating the minds of the uneducated Québec populace, but that’s worth just about as much as it sounds.
Now, sorry for the rant, but it just kills me when I hear those cries of “OMFG teh kebekerz wanna destry canada!!!11111111twenty-five”. Think, people. As for the worst ever Canadian, well, I can’t say. Bernardo is evil, but did he have an important impact on the world or even the country? No. Louis Riel? He had an important impact on the country, and he was indeed pretty weird, but he also helped the Métis to organise to defend their rights (not that it helped them in the long run). I think he could be called a father of Confederation, but, indeed, a controversial one. (And yeah, Raygun, I know your “poutine” reference is intended as an insult to “those stupid Quebecers who’ve been taught to think he’s been good to the country”, but I’ll pretend I didn’t see it.) I think it’s hard to decide who has been the “worst” anything since it really depends on your criteria, and people tend to answer emotionally to these questions.
As a matter of fact, no such insult was intended. The popularity of Riel is by no means restricted to Quebec – where I went to university (U of S), the student center is named after him, and that city’s “Frontier days” were named after him, although they’ve since been dropped altogether. When we were taught Canadian history in elementary school, Riel was depicted in the texts as a sympathetic character – and the museum at Batoche runs (or ran) a video that depicted Sir John A as raving red-eyed racist.
The poutine part was a joke and was Canadianizing “all that and a bag of chips”. Although it originated in Quebec, obviously, poutine has practically become Canada’s national dish now. It’s pretty popular out here.
You perhaps have a point about Parizeau’s inconsequentialism but as far as Levesque and Bouchard, I do believe they’ve done significant damage to the country – and I need not posit them as some sort of Svengali towards the Quebec people for this to be so. I’m a strong believer in a Federal Canada – so pardon me if I see the near breakup of the country as a bad thing. Pardon me if I see the current swing towards regions (born out of Quebec’s wranglings) holding Ottawa hostage a bad thing.
Absolutely there are different criteria – but Canada is lacking an obvious Jefferson Davis or Benedict Arnold figure (and more’s the better for it), so this is what we have to work with. I actually thought of the FLQ terrorists afterwards, but thought it would be piling on La Belle Province too much.
And for the record, I, and several other posters mentioned Pickton, Bernardo and Lepine. Awful people, and I wouldn’t want them on the $10 bill, but they’re blips on the evening news. Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz aren’t particularly serious candidates for Worst American and I don’t see our serial killers having the worst impact on Canada either.