Canada PoliticsWho is Canada’s worst premier of all time?
The Institute for Research on Public Policy Policy (IRPP) says that Canada's best premier - in the last 40 years - was Alberta's Peter Lougheed.
For a report released Thursday, the national think tank asked 30 historians, political scientists, economists, journalists and policy advisers from across Canada to pick their top five choices for best provincial premier since 1972.
Ontario's William Davis finished second on the list, followed by Saskatchewan's Allan Blakeney, New Brunswick's Frank McKenna and Robert Bourassa of Quebec.
Former PQ premier René Lévesque finished a close sixth.
If those are the best, who are the worst?
Yahoo! Canada News asked a panel of experts that very question.
Here are some of their responses:
Warren Kinsella, political analyst for the Toronto Sun:
"The worst Premier was Lucien Bouchard, because he brought the nation the closest it has ever been to dissolution. What Bouchard did hammered us economically, politically and even spiritually. Plenty of others caused damage - Mike Harris, Glen Clark, Bob Rae - but nobody caused as much chaos, in a very short time frame, than Lucien Bouchard."
Gerry Nicholls, political analyst, former Vice President of the National Citizens Coalition:
"Former Ontario Premier David Peterson: A smug, arrogant Yuppie, whose political incompetence paved the way for the disastrous Bob Rae government."
Dr. Dennis Pilon, political scientist at York University
"No question about it - Bill Vander Zalm of BC between 1986 and 1991. Vander Zalm could not seem to distinguish between his own self interest and the public
interest, whether it involved business dealings or personal morality.He repeatedly used his position as Premier to further his own business interests and on numerous occasions attempted to legislate his personal morality on issues like abortion for everyone in the province. And then he just wouldn't leave, no matter how bad the scandals got.
He arguably was the main factor in the destruction of the long-running right wing governing party in the province, Social Credit."
Dan McTeague, former Liberal MP
"My vote would be Leslie Frost - Ontario Premier from the 50's.
[He] kept Ontario in the social dark ages, resisting changes in the liberalizing of human conduct -- (think of a law to prevent, say, a husband and wife from having a drink together in the same bar). He was Ontario's Maurice Duplessis."
If current headlines are any indication, a few current premiers could find their way on to a future "worst ever" list, including B.C.'s Christy Clark and Ontario's Dalton McGuinty.
