Let's start withe the CBC results.

 

Here are brief profiles of their  Top 10

 

Here are the final rankings;

 

#	Name
1	Tommy Douglas
2	Terry Fox
3	Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4	Sir Frederick Banting
5	David Suzuki
6	Lester B. Pearson
7	Don Cherry
8	Sir John A. Macdonald
9	Alexander Graham Bell
10	Wayne Gretzky

 

There is no obvious number one choice. It is very interesting though that the man who was chosen was never Prime Minister, but still came from politics. Douglas' two biggest achievements were that he was the father of medicare, the free medical system that has been the brunt of American derision for ever, and is at the top of the heated argument debate these days with some calls to go to a two-tier medical system. Douglas was also the founder of the CCF party, which would later morph into Canada's perennial 3rd party the left wing, union backed, New Democratic Party. While they have never ruled the roost Federally they have been elected as the ruling party in many Provinces. Lesser known, outside of Canada, is that Douglas was also the father of well known actor Donald Sutherland, and the grandfather of Keifer Sutherland. I wonder how much of Douglas's vote came because of the timeliness of medicare? But at the same time I expected the voters to be a younger block of people, especially when I see high placements for people like Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, and Shania Twain. I wouldn't expect younger Canadians to know about Douglas or be moved by the cause of medicare. The older vote must have been out in full force for TC Douglas. It looks good on him, and it looks good on Canada. Can you imagine telling an American that the man voted as greatest Canadian is Tommy Douglas!! Who?? Oh, he was a left wing politician who gave us universal healthcare covered by higher taxes, and also founded the labour sponsored party. A communist!!??!! It makes me smile.

However, he didn't make it as #1 for me, so read on.

 

 

Women; There was a lot of feeling that Women were shortchanged on the list. Their is or was a saying that behind every great man there is a great woman. So, at the risk of sounding too chauvanistic, there may have been great women behind the likes of TC Douglas, John MacDonald, Terry Fox, etc, but they don't make the list because they were not the famous ones. Until recently women were kept behidn the scenes, so throughout the years when the country was born and forged, they were not always in a position to make the big splash. A woman has never been elected Prime Minister, and the likes of Shiela Fraser, Kim Campbell, and Shiela Copps have no business on this list. Women were and are a huge part of the success of Canada, but an objective list does not lend itself to placing women in the top 10, just to have a woman on the list. I have also heard a lot of complaining on this but few legitimate names to add to the list.

 

It is sad that so few Natives have made the CBC list, and fewer yet made my list. Louis Riel was a metis, not a true Native. Tecumseh was the lone native to make my list, and he was a figure of war, not peace or just a leader of his people. Elijah Harper, the Member of Parliament, made the CBC list, as did actor Chief Dan George. Neither one of them were in the top 50 though and didn't make my top 50. There was a great opportunity for leaders of Blackfoot and Cree Nations to have made this list if the country had allowed them the opportunity to bridge the gap between what the governemnt wanted in the late 1800's and what the native people were able to give. Instead the government took away their roles as leaders, forcing on them a system of capitalism and proprietership that was alien to them. It is the fault of Canada's forging fathers that a man like Poundmaker was unable to make this list.

 

Yes the likes of Jim Carrey, Shania Twain, etc make the list, prompting the question of fame versus great. To me a Great Canadian can be a Canadian who is great in what he/she does, or can be someone who has done great things for Canada. They can be internationally famous, or they can have done their greatest work overseas like Stephen Lewis and Norman Bethune without having the name recognition of a famous actor. They can have typical Canadian personality traits like a Stompin' Tom Connors or a TC Douglas, or they can be what we often wish we were more like as a country, like Pierre Trudeau, or Shania Twain. I do not believe that you had to do great things for Canadians to make this list.

 

Certain people make a mockery of the democratic process, or do so without malice but still have no business on this list. There are at least 4 people in the top 100 who have no business on the CBC top 100. Again this is not to say that others do belong, but at least their support while perhaps misguided was genuine and distributed throughout the country.

#22 Harold Rodgers; the founder of the Kinsmen Club. A fine communty organization indeed, but obviously voted here by his Kin.

#34 Hal Anderson; A Winnipeg DJ and an all-around pig. Openly campaigned for votes on-air as a stunt.

#44 Mary Maxwell; Best known member of the Bahai community. My only real surprise is that this list of 100 was not flooded with more special interest groups' and ethnic group leaders.

#66 Sheila Fraser; I guess in the grand scheme of things she is more deserving then say Pamela Anderson, but the fact is she is either on this list because of short term timing of the Liberal Ad-Scam, or as an outright protest vote by the Conservatives. Five years from now she wouldn't even register on the radar screen.