Canada's worst ever Prime Minister

[SirJosephPorter]

Any article that describes the Canadian Alliance as a moderate centrist party should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

Canadian Alliance was very much modeled after the Republican Party in USA. That was the golden age of the Republican Party. Republicans controlled the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the House and the Senate (and also had the majority of governorships and a majority of state legislatures). Carl Rowe was confidently talking of building a permanent Republican majority.

When something works, it usually produces imitators. So it was quite reasonable for the Alliance Party to pattern itself after the Republican Party. And Republican Party was (and still is) very much a party of the right, not of the centre right.

As I recall Alliance had many of the same planks that were present in Republican Party platform (opposition to abortion, to gay rights, a plank promising American style referendums on absolutely everything etc.).

But the kind of Bible thumping patriotism, social conservatism that sells so well in USA does not seem to transfer all that well into Canada (or any other country for that matter).

Eventually Harper sensibly decided that the way to win power is to move to centre right.

 

[china]

it's2300hr

Good Night

 

[SirJosephPorter]

If I'm selecting the worst ever Prime Minister, I'd have to pick Mulroney. Here is a man who was given two majority governments. He could govern pretty much how he wanted. He chose to put up a large deficit every year he was in office. After Mulroney quit and Kim Cambell took over, the Conservatives were down to two MPs. The Canadian people judged Mulroney and found him lacking. As well as being incompetent, he was dishonest.

Juan, I agree. And the best? Without doubt Trudeau, at least in recent memory. Not for his economic performance, it was lousy (though no worse than that of Mulroney).

However, he has earned his place in Canada’s history. He will be remembered for decades (or even centuries) to come as father of the constitution, as somebody who gave Canada the Charter of Rights (in my opinion, the best document of its kind in the world, much better than the Bill of rights).

 

[Cliffy]

As someone who was here for the Trudeau years, I have to conclude that, china, your philosophical views are far more astute than your political ones. Bad mouthing a dead man is cowardly, to say the least. And anybody who can stand up in parliament and tell the opposition and the Yanks to go F*** themselves is OK by me. And anybody who thinks politics has any relevance is just not paying attention.

 

[L Gilbert]

Well, I'm not sure if Bullroney was the worst, but he was bad enough, alright. I think the point China is trying to make is that the halo painted on Turdeau's literary portraits is off-color and imbalanced. He's right. The guy was a pretty good politician, but he had faults. He was an intelligent man, but not particularly wiser than anyone else.

 

[Walter]

Been through this many times; the only leader to attend Turdoh's funeral was Fidel; nuff said.

 

[captain morgan]

Some folks might say the same of holding on to bitterness against a dead man....

We are still in the grips and paying-off Trudeau's stupidity.... We are reminded of his arrogance and destructive nature daily.

 

[captain morgan]

Been through this many times; the only leader to attend Turdoh's funeral was Fidel; nuff said.

Is that true?

 

[Cliffy]

We are still in the grips and paying-off Trudeau's stupidity.... We are reminded of his arrogance and destructive nature daily.

Stupid is destroying your life support system. Creating dept is just bad math or economic irresponsibility. Trudeau did what he thought was right for the country. Mulberry, on the other hand, was in it for himself.

 

[#juan]

Been through this many times; the only leader to attend Turdoh's funeral was Fidel; nuff said.

As usual Walter can't get it right. Diplomats from around the world filed past Trudeau's casket for five or six hours. Jimmy Carter, Prince Andrew. Fidel Castro was there but he sure as hell wasn't the only one. I was there and I saw it.

 

[DichotoMe]

Right wingers are just pissy because the majority of Canadians liked Trudeau, even before the spending. I am hard pressed to think of a conservative Canadians liked even half that much. Nice pieces of objective journalism China.

Diefenbaker brought us the very ineffective Bill of Rights. Trudeau brought us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is much more effective legally. Diefenbaker started the destruction of the RCAF when he cancelled the Arrow AND DESTROYED THE PROTOTYPE to cover up his partisan decision. Why destroy them when there were willing buyers? Why aren't you ragging on Mulroney, he spent piles of your money as well and did just as much damage to Canada. At least Trudeau had a backbone.

The Canadian Alliance was the biggest joke in political history and they've weasled their way into the conservative party. That was a party with a couple good ideas but had too many loud mouth bigots and they moved themselves to the far right. For example: MP Larry Spencer - He said "homosexuals, due to AIDS and other health problems, have a far lower life expectancy than straight men." There are more examples of this type of CA behavior but i don't have all day.

My point here is that all politicians have good and bad moments in history and we can create contexts to destroy the reputations of many of them. Should we, definitely not. Its thirty years later, get over it.

 

[coldstream]

Worst Prime Ministers ever? The criteria would be those who have sold out Canadian's birthright and economy to the pirates of international finance, and disassembled the moral structure of our society through abortion, homosexual affirmation, 'multiculturism'.

The worst..

Jean Chretien - a lying, two faced, incompetent scoundrel.. without the intellect, vision or character to manage a truckstop, much less a country. A quisling for foreign interests and a fool.

The close second, and really a party to the same criminal conspiracy of dismantling Canada

Brian Mulroney - a petty neoconservative ideologue, a weaning puppet for American financial interests, utterly corrupt, propelled by vanity and cowardice.

 

[petros]

Mulroney by far.

 

[Socrates the Greek]

Mulroney & Steven Harper worst of the worst PM s Canada has ever seen, $50 Billion + with in 8 months. It sounds like a car 0 to 50Billion in just 8 minutes.

 

[captain morgan]

Stupid is destroying your life support system. Creating dept is just bad math or economic irresponsibility. Trudeau did what he thought was right for the country. Mulberry, on the other hand, was in it for himself.

In all fairness, you can not make that statement and expect it to reflect reality.

 

[TenPenny]

I'd have to do a lot of digging into all of our past PMs. The debt or deficit alone is not a useful measure - it would have to be compared to GDP and then compared to historical values for it to have any meaning.

Kim Campbell was likely the stupidest PM in recent history. We've certainly had some odd ones.

 

[captain morgan]

Right wingers are just pissy because the majority of Canadians liked Trudeau, even before the spending. I am hard pressed to think of a conservative Canadians liked even half that much. Nice pieces of objective journalism China.

Hitler was well liked at one time too.

 

[Cliffy]

In all fairness, you can not make that statement and expect it to reflect reality.

Why not? Is it any more ridiculous than any of your posts?

 

[#juan]

I'd have to do a lot of digging into all of our past PMs. The debt or deficit alone is not a useful measure - it would have to be compared to GDP and then compared to historical values for it to have any meaning.

Kim Campbell was likely the stupidest PM in recent history. We've certainly had some odd ones.

In Mulroney's case I would have to listen to the Canadian People who reduced Mulroney's majority to just two seats.

Kim Campbell was stupid enough to take the leader's job when it must have been obvious that the PCs were pretty well finished for a while anyway.

 

[Cliffy]

In Mulroney's case I would have to listen to the Canadian People who reduced Mulroney's majority to just two seats.

Kim Campbell was stupid enough to take the leader's job when it must have been obvious that the PCs were pretty well finished for a while anyway.

They would still be decimated if the Reform/Alliance had not hijacked the party.