UFV history professor Barbara Messamore is quoted in a Maclean’s survey of Canada’s 23 prime ministers, published today on Oct 7.
A panel of 123 academics and journalists, from Canada and around the world, rated the country’s leaders since Confederation in 1867, on a scale of 0 to 5.
Top ratings went to W.L. Mackenzie King (PM, 1921-48 with two brief gaps), who scored 4.76, and Quebecer Wilfrid Laurier (PM 1896-1911), close behind on 4.62.
Dr Messamore is one of a handful of experts directly quoted.
Where others praised Laurier for his Canadian spirit of compromise, Messamore criticized him for ‘moral evasion’, citing his abandonment of Manitoba’s French-speaking minority.
Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, who ushered British Columbia into Confederation back in 1871, ranks third, scoring 4.59.
The jury’s out on Justin Trudeau, but with 3.27 he could be poised to overtake his father, who scores 4.10.
BC’s only national leader, Kim Campbell, has the lowest rating, 1.36 — hardly surprising, as she only held office for five months in 1993.
The Maclean’s 7 October survey is at: http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/ranking-canadas-best-and-worst-prime-ministers/
— submitted by UFV adjunct faculty member Ged Martin.
10/31/2016