Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Prime Minister of the last 43 years

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 3:11pm - 26 Comments

Angus-Reid asks a thousand Canadians to identify the best and worst prime ministers since 1968. The results below (with changes from four years ago in parentheses).

Best
Trudeau 36% (+3)
Harper 19% (+5)
Chretien 12% (+4)
Mulroney 6% (-8)

Worst
Mulroney 19% (-1)
Harper 19% (+4)
Trudeau 13% (-)
Chretien 10% (-3)

Mr. Trudeau tops 36% in British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario and Atlantic Canada and bests Mr. Harper in every region except Alberta. Quebec is the only jurisdiction that ranks Mr. Harper less than second.

Tags: Angus Reid, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Pierre Trudeau, Stephen Harper

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Anonymous

Well now that Albertans are in shock…….heh

lawoh

Now, Now, OriginalDumbOne, nobody in Alberta is surprised just how stupid the ROC is!

PET codified our ‘rights’ in the Charter, something he is praised for in the ROC but we knew what he was doing was usurping for government (and government control) our natural human rights as come with the live birth of every human being. This was done so that government could then limit those rights as government (and unelected courts) then decided to do so.

Put another way, OriginalDumbOne, we know human rights are not granted by or limited by government so we have little value for Trudeau’s little paper and his little freaky control techniques.

Anonymous

Yeah, you’re so unique…cough…in Canada, you really should separate

Oh…and change your meds. Those aren’t working.

lawoh

I don’t know why you hate Harper so, OriginalDumbOne, you are just as pig headed and single mined as he is. Oh, have I discovered the ‘answer’?

Thanks for the meds comment, I forgot to take my vitamin B today . … perhaps you should consider vitamin D3 supplements as you appear to need some for your depressing and downer attitudes …. Just Saying!

An aside … I never did like Harper as he is actively finishing what the Liberal governments started respecting Canada losing it’s sovereignty … if it were up to me, Martin and Harper and other et al would find themselves banished from the country for their treasonous activities.

Anonymous

I don’t hate Harper…I don’t even know the man. I do hate his policies because he’s a bull bumbling around in a china shop

I’m a realist lawoh…not a partisan, and all the fantasizing in the world won’t change reality

You weren’t born with any rights…you got whatever rights existed in the country you were born in. Lucky for you that was Canada and not Iran.

Soverignty is a man-made concept…it doesn’t exist anywhere but our imaginations….and we are globalizing, so it’s worth zip.

Treason is betraying your country to the enemy in time of war.

None of those conditions exist.

Anonymous

They’re supplied by God – is that it? Well, if they are he sure has a lousy distribution system.

lawoh

And that very sad fact, JanBC, is because you actively fail to protect them.

Besides, I am very amused that you want to believe that some sort of God, whatever that is to you and so many others, is interested in the micro management of human beings. Hahahahaha

You and I and everyone else occupy a number of earth elements for a period of time and after that time your elements are redistributed back into the earth’s matrix to be reassembled into whatever construct the earth manages to assemble them into – an updated version of ashes to ashes and dust to dust – your destiny is personal extinction. As what happens to the electromagnetic part of you at the time of your extinction, I have no bloody idea. Hahahahahahahahaha Sorry!

Philosophically I’m an egalitarian in my old ancestral Zaporozhian Cossack style. The attitude is for control of a limited territory with meaningful democratic participation by all members of that, and only that society (the current style of the Swiss who, so far, have absorbed and survived using the Cossack lesson – but time is long ad everything corrupts and fails) with little or no ambition to invade, take and occupy the territory of others coupled with the Cossack spirit to to protect each individual’s freedom.

My people’s origins were that of the escaped slave and serf unwilling to work for, kill for or otherwise kiss the master’s azz.

OE1 seems content to be absorbed into the borg masses. I am not.

Anonymous

Since you’re a modern-day, self-styled Cossack, I’m
guessing you’re not much of a Stalin fan.
lawoh

Nor a fan of the German, Catherine II (Catherine the Great).
Anonymous

Since you’re a modern-day, self-styled Cossack, I’m
guessing you’re not much of a Stalin fan.
Anonymous

Thanks for making me curious re Zaporozhian Cossack – had not been familiar with that little bit of history. They certainly did not take kindly to being conquered, lol.

“The Kozaks of the Dnieper to the Sultan of Turkey:Thou Turkish Satan, brother and companion to the accursed Devil, and companion to Lucifer himself, Greetings!What the hell kind of noble knight art thou? The Devil voids, and thy army devours. Never wilt thou be fit to have the sons of Christ under thee: thy army we fear not, and by land and on sea we will do battle against thee.Thou scullion of Babylon, thou wheelwright of Macedonia, thou beer-brewer of Jerusalem, thou goat-flayer of Alexandria, thou swineherd of Egypt, both the Greater and the Lesser, thou sow of Armenia, thou goat of Tartary, thou hangman of Kamenetz, thou evildoer of Podoliansk, thou grandson of the Devil himself, thou great silly oaf of all the world and of the netherworld and, before our God, a blockhead, a swine’s snout, a mare’s ass, a butcher’s cur, an unbaptized brow, May the Devil take thee! That is what the Kozaks have to say to thee, thou basest-born of runts! Unfit art thou to lord it over true Christians!The date we write not for no calendar have we got; the moon is in the sky, the year is in a book, and the day is the same with us here as with thee over there, and thou canst kiss us thou knowest where!”

http://thescreamonline.com/art/art7-1/repin/repin.html

Anonymous

Harper is consistently second rate.
Anonymous

Tied with Mulroney? Wow.

Harper being tied with Mulroney for worst PM since ’68 seems too hard on Harper to me.

It’s also fascinating to me that the number of people who think Harper’s the worst PM, and the number of people who think he’s th best PM have BOTH risen at almost exactly the same rate in the last 4 years. Whether you think he’s great, or whether you think he’s horrible, your camp has been getting larger and larger.
Anonymous

Ten years from now, Harper may well be at the top of the “best” list.

Anonymous

He’s got 15 points to go to make that position. He only has to gain one more to top the worst list.

Bets which one he hits first?

http://www.facebook.com/people/André-Couture/509144528 André Couture

Let me check the math one time here….yup, if the trend continues, in ten years time Angus-Reid won’t be be doing another survey of who’s the best prime minister for another two years.
Anonymous

You might want to rethink that logic, pal. Harper’s “best” percentage will change, but Trudeau’s number will also change, and many of Trudeau’s acolytes are dying of old age.

Claudia Lemire

Oh he will one of the most consequential PM of all times, top 3, easy….

Anonymous

He’ll probably win an increased majority in the next election, so Harper could be PM for a total of 15 years or more. I agree with you that Harper is easily a “Top 3″ contender.

Anonymous

Notice – the Pollyanna Club meeting is tomorrow – unless the sun doesn’t come out.

Anonymous

Nice one! Sorry for likening you to Emily a few days ago–your comment was much more clever than anything she’d be able to come up with.

Harper has been consistently underestimated by his opponents throughout his career. Consider the possibility that you are still underestimating him, even after his majority victory, his third consecutive mandate (always increasing) and his fourth consecutive major improvement in popular support.
Anonymous

I remember making a similar comment quite a while ago… Harper has always been underestimated, always. Probably because most of the pundits in Canada are Liberal.

Meanwhile, a guy who has never won an election, Ignatieff, was lauded as formidable. Or a guy that has had some success, but lost his last election as a leader by coming in 3rd place with less than half the vote of the winner (Ontario 1995) has been lauded as formidable. Or a guy that has never won an election, Layton, is lauded as formidable.

Harper:
-won leader of Canadian Alliance
-won leader of merged Conservative Party
-lost 2004 federal election but managed to reduce Libs to minority
-won 2006 federal election
-won 2008 federal election
-won 2011 federal election

So he’s been a consistent winner. And in doing so, he has resurrected the Conservative movement in Canada from a rump in the 90s to the most formidable party in Canada today. Yet very few other than Paul Wells have ever called attention to the success.

Or even consider Obama, who has won only two elections to be a leader, the
Democratic party leadership of 2008 and then the 2008 general election,
and was then lauded as a transformative leader and handed a Nobel Peace
Prize for no particular reason.

I’m not trying to sound like a whiner, but it’s always been an interesting observation, IMO. Even today you can point this out and many people will simply deny that he has any appeal, so I usually don’t bother.
Anonymous

@scf:disqus

I completely agree. Fifty years from now, Harper will be seen as one of the most significant prime ministers in Canadian history, and most of his opponents will be remembered (if at all) as ineffectual jokes.

Dion will be remembered, as author of the Clarity Act and a key player in the 2008 Coalition Crisis. Layton will be fondly remembered as an aberrant political overachiever who slew the Bloc. Ignatieff and most other nominal Harper opponents will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and barely remembered.
Anonymous

Nice one! Sorry for likening you to Emily a few days ago–your comment was much more clever than anything she’d be able to come up with.

Harper has been consistently underestimated by his opponents throughout his career. Consider the possibility that you are still underestimating him, even after his majority victory, his third consecutive mandate (always increasing) and his fourth consecutive major improvement in popular support.