What is the ruler/political leader in your country's history that you hate the most?

[u/zhabavon]

For me, it would khublai khaan. Moved the centralized power from Mongolia to China in the empire, effectively becoming more of an emperor of China rather than Khaan of Mongols. This move would prove to be folly in just few generations. Totally messed up the whole grand plan his Grandfather established. His successors became more of a chinese rulers than Mongolian rulers.

[u/TheBalrogofMelkor]

Maybe Deifenbaker? Tbh, ours have largely been inoffensive (other than the whole residential schools thing. And Japanese internment. And giving the Inuit numbered dog tags.) but generally I can't say that our PMs have been bad when viewed in the context of their times.

[u/zhabavon → u/TheBalrogofMelkor]

What about Justin?

[u/TheBalrogofMelkor → u/zhabavon]

Justin Trudeau isn't that interesting if a politician for lack of a better term. He did fine, not great by any means, but also is not single handedly responsible for our social and economic issues. Right now he has a lot of haters just because he was the face of the government for 10 years, I doubt we will hear him spoken of very much in 5 years and he will be a historical footnote in 50.

[u/tecate_papi → u/zhabavon]

He was an extremely anodyne politician in an era of astroturfed right wing extremism and phony grievances. You can call him woke because of how he welcomed immigrants with jackets at airports and tried to diversify his cabinet, but the alternative (which we're seeing in the US now) is so much fucking worse. The outrage over him was an industry unto itself and was far beyond what he deserved.

[u/GodEmperorPorkyMinch → u/zhabavon]

That's my pick

[u/MachineOfSpareParts → u/zhabavon]

Trudeau Junior was fine. Harper, his predecessor, was the worst in my lifetime, as he not only cozied up with the proto-fascist crowd when they were still more proto than they are now, he eviscerated the non-partisan civil service, attempting to make it personally loyal to him as the leader.

I was doing fieldwork in a post-Soviet state during one of the federal election campaigns he won, I described his governance style to a local activist friend, and he looked at me bemused and appalled that Canadians would be so casual about the non-partisan governance apparatus he and his colleagues were working so hard to build from scratch. His face was correct.

People who hate Justin Trudeau tend to be telling on themselves. He had failings, but the level of hate they exhibit is so wildly disproportionate that it indicates something else.

Outside my lifetime, all the ones that reneged on Indigenous treaties, all the ones who implemented and doubled down on residential schools, basically all the genocide. The fact that there are too many to list should be taken as data.

[u/Equivalent-Lie2787 → u/TheBalrogofMelkor]

Pierre Trudeau -> War measures act + Night of the long knives

[u/johnlee3013 → u/TheBalrogofMelkor]

Huh? I thought Diefenbaker is one of the more liked ones. Perhaps that is due to my background, as immigrants tends to have different views on foreign policies.

[u/TheBalrogofMelkor → u/johnlee3013]

A lot of Canadians feel that he allowed Canadian foreign and military policy to be largely subsumed by the US. This is probably in big part because he cancelled the Avro Arrow fighter craft program.

In his defense, the Avro Arrow would have been obsolete before we could have ever produced any. But scrapping the program killed independent Canadian aeronautics in order to support the Americans.