Best Canadian Premiers we never had

CanadianTory

CanadianTory

We talk a lot about the best Prime Ministers we never had (Stanfield, Rae, etc), but I can’t recall a serious debate over the best Premiers, who arguably have just as big a role, if not bigger, in shaping Confederation.

So, in your opinion, is there an individual, likely a politician, who would have served as the idea Premier of a specific province?
 
durante

durante

CanadianTory said:
We talk a lot about the best Prime Ministers we never had (Stanfield, Rae, etc), but I can’t recall a serious debate over the best Premiers, who arguably have just as big a role, if not bigger, in shaping Confederation.

So, in your opinion, is there an individual, likely a politician, who would have served as the idea Premier of a specific province?
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It would be interesting if some of our better NDP candidates were running on a track record; so maybe Jack Layton as Premier of Ontario, or Ed Broadbent in BC? Probably alot of decent options for premier of BC if we avoid the Bennett Dictatorship.
 
CanadianTory

CanadianTory

durante said:
It would be interesting if some of our better NDP candidates were running on a track record; so maybe Jack Layton as Premier of Ontario, or Ed Broadbent in BC? Probably alot of decent options for premier of BC if we avoid the Bennett Dictatorship.
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A lot of the NDP Premiers have been more centrist than their federal counterparts.
 

overoceans

In Alberta, I think both Nick Taylor(Liberal) and Grant Notley(NDP) were often discussed as such.

And I'm gonna be slightly heretical here and say that, during the period where they were leading their respective parties simultaneously, it was Taylor who had the edge in the BPWNH sweepstakes, despite the fact that he never even got a seat until 1986, a year after Notley's passing.

(My favorite Taylor anecdote involved him addressing a western separatist forum during the NEP era, and telling everyone there that they were just being used as pawns by Peter Lougheed for his war against Ottawa. I can imagine him breaking that news to the mob, in his lackadaisical, deadpan drawl.)
 
durante

durante

overoceans said:
I'm not sure why you'd posit Broadbent as a BC premier. He was from Ontario, and if I'm not mistaken, represented an Oshawa riding his whole career.
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For some reason I thought he taught at UBC. Ontario for Ed then.

Here's my list of potential BC Premiers (with efforts to include each major party):

Harold Winch, CCF - actually won first place in the vote in 1952, but because of STV in BC at the time, the Social Credit began their dynasty. Winch was called by long time SoCred Premier WAC Bennett "the best leader of the opposition there has ever been".

Robert Strachan, CCF - long time leader of the provincial party.

Arthur Laing, Liberal - led the Liberal party in the BC election in 1960; became a federal cabinet minister

Ray Perrault, Liberal - led the provincial Liberal party and had also briefly a Senator

Davie Fulton, PC - Rhodes Scholar

David Anderson, Liberal - also became prominent in federal politics
 
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Planet of Hats

Planet of Hats

Donor
Sandra Pupatello. I genuinely think Ontario could've avoided Doug Ford if Pupatello had won out over Wynne and the downtown-Toronto faction in the leadership race to take over from McGuinty.
 

overoceans

Vinization said:
Stephen Lewis in Ontario, maybe Laurence Decore in Alberta?
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I remember, as a New Democrat in the early 90s, seriously entertaining the possibility that Decore would soon be premier.

Then, he decided to make "massive and brutal cuts" his economic theme in 1993, thus prompting Klein to reply with "Hey, I can do that number even better!", and the rest is history.

It probably is the case that most of the voters who went Liberal in '93 were doing so because they wanted the party to form government, whereas when people voted NDP in '86 and '89, they were mostly voting for an opposition.
 

overoceans

CanadianTory said:
Fulton is an underused figure for sure.
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Five years BEFORE Seduction Of The Innocent was published, Fulton went on a crusade against violent comic books. (See both Peter C. Newman and wikipedia on this). I'm wondering if he coulda done more on this issue if he had had the power of a premiership behind him.

Dollars to donuts, if he had made a name for himself as the Canadian Comstock, that's all he'd be remembered for now.
 
CanadianTory

CanadianTory

overoceans said:
Five years BEFORE Seduction Of The Innocent was published, Fulton went on a crusade against violent comic books. (See both Peter C. Newman and wikipedia on this). I'm wondering if he coulda done more on this issue if he had had the power of a premiership behind him.

Dollars to donuts, if he had made a name for himself as the Canadian Comstock, that's all he'd be remembered for now.
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A successful Fulton might mean no SocCred
 
HongCanucker

HongCanucker

Grace McCarthy comes up as a missed opportunity for the BC Social Credit Party every now and then. She was closer to the Bennett side of the party rather than Vander Zalm's nutjobs, and had considerable name recognition from Expo 86, spearheading greater opportunities for single women, and protections for victims of child abuse. She probably would have played well with the urban middle class with a firm free enterprise platform, undercutting Wilson's campaign in 1991.
 
True Grit

True Grit

Jean Chrétien nearly ran for the Quebec Liberal leadership in 1978 - had he ran, and had he won in either 1981 or 1985 and managed to win re-election, the province and the rest of the country would’ve avoided the constitutional headaches of the 80s/early 90s.
 
durante

durante

CanadianTory said:
A successful Fulton might mean no SocCred
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Almost certainly. And the PC collapse is likely not nearly as bad as the SoCred collapse at the end of the 80s/90s, and today BC is probably dominated provincially by the PCs and NDP, with Libs and Greens as minor parties, like the vote federally, and more typical of both a Western province and a British colony.
 
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