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Canada's Three Worst Prime Ministers

by Johnny Reb

The current bumbling bible toting Stephen Harper (aka: Petro Steve, Herr Harper, der Fuhrer, il Duce) is the leading contender to replace one of the infamous three listed below.  

Since 1867 there's been a huge batch of hopeless incompetents to choose from. Behold the bottom of the barrel in chronological order.

It ought to surprise no one that these three bungling bastards are all conservatives.

(1) John A MacDonald (aka: John Alcoholic MacDonald, Old Tomorrow')

John A MacDonald was a chronic drunk, corporate crony and rabid racist renown for clearing the prairies of native Canadians to make way for the building of the CPR. Also noted for endless corruptions, scams and scandals during the building of the CPR and the two decades that followed and the disgraceful hanging of one of Canada's few genuine heroes, Louis Riel. MacDonald's endless pork barrel and patronage morphed into a long standing Canadian political tradition that has abated not one iota within the corruption ravaged regime of pastor Stephen Harper. The NWMP (later the RCMP) were created specifically by MacDonald to eradicate the aforementioned inconvenient indigenous heathen from the plains. This function of the RCMP remains intact today.

The BNA Act was apparently scribbled into law during a succession of drunken bashes and binges, likely organized by John A personally who was a professional pub crawler. The enlightenment motto of the French revolution, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" was replaced by the more sedate conservative slogan of "Peace, Order and Good government", despite conservatives love of war and authoritarianism. "Order" is the only apt expression that can be applied to conservatives who covet the idea of an oligarchic police state. As for "peace" and "good government" conservatives have nothing but disdain. Perhaps the silly "peace, order and good government" motto was introduced by John A during a morning after hangover meeting following one of his famous booze binges. These are words to die for - but certainly not to live for.

Sadly, many Canadians seem to be partial to  good old boy conservative reactionary dolts and drunks like John A, Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper and Gordon Campbell, preferring reptiles such as them to sedate progressive liberals and socialists. One story has John A apparently upchucking  in the house of commons during a debate. He later claimed that puked because of a disagreeable speech by a liberal opponent.

In 1869 the HBC decided to sell Rupert's Land to Canada for $1.5 million, the huge land mass of the northwest between Quebec and the Rockies. As usual, the real owners of the land, the indigenous peoples, were never consulted. The native peoples were deemed superfluous entities included in the deal as if they were a herd of livestock or vermin that could be "legally" disappeared or eradicated. This  is how they were subsequently treated by the real estate speculators who greased the palms of politicians, railway building tycoons, and racist conservative politicians, including John A. Some, such as Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and Big Bear did rightly object. But, as in other parts of the world where native populations got in the way of the Christian white man, they were systematically ignored, caged like feral rabbits or simply exterminated.

In the spirit of John Stuart Mill's maxim about the "tyranny of the majority", democracies are generally judged by how they treat its minorities.* Anyone waving the Canadian flag and singing the ludicrous "Oh Canada, (our home ON native land)"" ought to study some real unvarnished Canuck history - and you'd start waving the Jolly Roger instead.  Our treatment of indigenous populations is shameful and appalling, but there's much to choose from - to cite just two, remember the commie witch hunts during the periods following both World Wars and internment of the Japanese during the second one.

* An anomalous feature unique to our modern forms of representative democracy. Most of human history has been beleaguered by a "tyranny of the minority" in the form of kings, queens, land barons, popes, priests, princes and other despots.

MacDonald came up with the oxymoronic party name of "Liberal Conservative", only to be surpassed by the even more ludicrous self-contradiction "Progressive Conservative Party"  in 1942. This self-styled delusion eventually ran its course when short-lived proto-fascist reactionary parties such as the Canadian Alliance and Reform Party merged into the Conservative Party of Canada, a mutation of traditional conservatism (called neo-conservatism) but completely devoid of any moral pretence, notion of the common good or noblesse oblige. Conservatism on crack, one might say, which has become the dominant political ideology of  global capitalism. After the moral and economic abyss of the reign of Brian Mulroney, one would think that would have been the end of conservative parties in Canada forever. But no, wait! 

Canadians quite obviously enjoy misery and pain bordering on masochism;  they have elected the robotic Christian neo-con sociopathic ghoul Stephen Harper not once, but twice.

Let's end the tragedy of John A on a positive note. No one is all bad right? Even Hitler loved his dog. John A, in a very non-conservative manner, and likely from intense feelings of guilt, did recommend granting native Canadians the vote. But this would not come to pass eighty or so years later in 1960. Yes, that's right - 1960. And the last barbaric residential school finally shut its  doors in the 1980s.

(2) R. B. Bennett (aka: R B (Rotten Bastard, Robber Baron))

Bennett was a rotund pompous ass Methodist multimillionaire corporate lawyer and aspiring aristocrat who blamed the working classes for the Great Depression . In his real estate speculations and other business shenanigans using political largesse, Bennett believed he was following the will of god and his mother.

After losing the election of 1935, Bennett eventually did Canada a great service by moving to Jolly Old England in order to plead for a coveted peerage. He eventually died of dry rot in the medieval atmosphere of the House of Lords.

In blaming the Great Depression on  working people for their sloth, rather than the speculative bandits on Wall Street and Bay Street, Bennett did nothing for them despite the fact that many Canadians were financially ruined and literally starving in Canadian cities and farming communities.

In Vancouver during the summer of 1933 more than 1000 unemployed men climbed aboard eastbound freight trains for a meeting with Bennett in Ottawa.  The numbers in the "On to Ottawa Trek" would continually grow as the trains headed east through the prairies and by the time they reached Regina, Prime Minister Bennett decided to put a stop to the "commie hordes" by calling in Canada's proverbial thugs of the elite and privileged, the RCMP. The RCMP were always pressed into service to staunch any efforts by the working classes to real democracy and social justice. By the time the inevitable ensuing riots with the On to Ottawa trekkers and RCMP ended, dozens on both sides had been injured and over 100 trekkers arrested. The fascist police state has been in existence in Canada for a long time folks.

The Great Depression would continue for several more years and when another mommy's boy, Liberal Mackenzie King was elected PM in 1935, little changed for the struggling starving working classes. King was too busy praying and holding séances to communicate with his deceased mother.

In short, R B Bennett was a self-righteous arrogant and heartless conservative bastard lacking in consideration or empathy for anyone beneath his elevated class status of obscene wealth. He was contemptuous of any political sentiments to the left of Marie Antoinette and was referred to as "Iron Heel" (remember Jack London's novel?)by the oppressed working classes and his political opponents on the left.

"Bennett buggies" were automobiles towed by horses and "Bennett coffee" was barley brewed in hot water on the scorched prairies. Bennett believed in laissez-faire metaphysical mysticism such as the "invisible hand of the marketplace", that the economy would fix itself if left to godly forces of the free market. He's second only to Brian Mulroney as the most unpopular and despised Prime Ministers. 

(3) Brian (On the Take) Mulroney (Aka: Lyin' Brian, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Bastard in Bonehead clothing, Bonehead in Bastard clothing, Blarney and Bullshit - take your pick).

One of Mulroney's famous (or infamous) quotes was "Give us 20 years and you won't recognize this country." What credulous Canadians didn't realize is that it was a threat, not a promise. It took him less than 10 years to demolish the country socially and economically. You can read all the ugly and sordid  blow by blow details in the book "On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years" by Stevie Cameron.

At best, Moose Jaw Mulroney belongs behind bars permanently. But if and when the revolution arrives, he, along with Conrad Black (who still thinks Mulroney is a swell guy and was a great PM, perhaps even more admirable than himself) and Stephen Harper, will be among the first led to the firing squad.

Mulroney was a swinish parasitic pathological liar, a bag man and corporate crony who lined his pockets each day in office while dishing out patronage* and selling off Canada to the Americans. A good buddy of another incompetent conservative doltish pecker head known by friend and foe alike as Ronny Ray Gun whose primary attributes were raw sociopathic ambition, driven by unmitigated desire for power and corporate motivated wars combined with fiscal mismanagement and ineptitude. Mulroney managed to triple Canada's national debt, duplicating the time frame it took his buddy Ronald Reagan to do the same in the US. Mulroney ran up more debt than the accumulated peacetime debt combined since Confederation (that's excluding the two World Wars). Quite a feat eh?

* In his first year in office Mulroney set an all-time record, making 1,280 patronage appointments, filling the ranks with his school pals, relatives, business associates and boozing buddies.

Like his pal Reagan, Mulroney's dreadful regime in  the 1990s was like a endless tilt-a-whirl or möbius strip horror story that was as painful for the citizens of our country as chronic haemorrhoids and passing kidney stones.  Even Willy Shakespeare could not have concocted such a tragic comedy.

Mulroney was the asshole who signed the phony free trade agreements such as NAFTA (basically blank checks for corporations to operate with impunity throughout the world) thus throwing the Canadian middle and working classes off the bus for good. Thanks for nothing Brian. This is the same twit who once said "Don't talk to me about free trade. Free trade is a threat to the sovereignty of Canada". He wasn't called Lyin' Brian for nothing.

Brian Mulroney became the most despised Prime Ministers in Canadian history, his popularity reduced to 8% during his last months in office. After politics he continued unabated his life of crime as a professional influence pedlar and corporate bag man.       

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