journal features

the "greatest Canadian" is cooked

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2004.11.15

I had a look at the standings for the greatest Canadian 'competition' that the CBC is putting on. The show has a series of episodes in which ten media types present a pitch (basically, they recount the important bits of their candidate's life story) on ten 'great' Canadians. Each of the candidates is on the list after having received a lot of nominations as the 'greatest' Canadian.

There are standings as to who is the 'greatest'. Strangely, they include rankings by male and female voters in addition to the overall standings. And the male/female split votes can't be made to add up to the overall standings. They just can't.

Take Dr. Banting for instance. He's currently behind David Suzuki, Pierre Trudeau, Terry Fox and Tommy Douglas in both the male and female rankings (among others). But somehow he appears ahead of Suzuki in the overall standings.

So either the male/female and/or overall standings are out of synch, or the whole thing is cooked.

rand()m quote

On the endless saga of Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto; "It shouldn't have had to come to this. I'm so tired of getting up every morning and wondering, 'What will it be today?' I'm so tired of giving the benefit of the doubt again and again, only to be let down again and again.... Somewhere a responsible adult has to appear, draw a bright moral line, tell the truth and say unequivocally what won't be tolerated. Somebody has to do the right thing."

—Denzil Minnan-Wong