August 21, 2007
Kamloops Daily News

It's not surprising that the Greatest Canadian contest
should be won by Tommy Douglas. Canadians are proud of
their healthcare system and Douglas was the unassuming
pioneer of it.

The Worst Canadian contest was more surprising. The man who
was voted as the worst was also near the top of the list for
best: Pierre Trudeau.

What's going on here? A simple explanation is that people
who didn't like Trudeau voted for him as the worst.

But I think there is more going on. Trudeau was disliked
but to select him as worst demonstrates a lack of knowledge
of history. Sure, he was often cavalier and told western
farmers to sell their own wheat but he was no match for Vlad
the Impaler. Vlad from Wallachia (now Romania), also known
as Count Dracula, took great delight in torturing his
enemies by boiling, mutilating, dismembering, and impaling
them through their anus until the wood stake came out their
mouths.

No, Canadians are a nice people who don't like to reflect on
their dark past. When asked to choose the worst, Canadians
pick from a list of the usual suspects. As a result, a list
of worst Canadians ends up being a divergent mix of familiar
characters. Even the really despicable criminals who made
the list were well-known: Clifford Olsen, Paul Bernardo and
Karla Homolka.

If Canadians dug a little deeper, they could come up with
real scumbags. And you don't have to go far from home.

How about the Kamloops Kid, for example? He was born Inouye
Kanao, the son of Japanese immigrants who lived in Kamloops.
He was given his nickname by those who he tortured. Inouye
left Kamloops prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and joined
the Japanese army.

As a prison guard at a POW camp in Hong Kong, Kanao took
great relish in beating and torturing Canadian soldiers. He
taunted prisoners, in perfect English, that it was payback
time for the way he had been treated in Canada. After the
Japanese army was defeated, Kanao was sent back to Canada
for trail. He was found guilty of treason and hanged.

Unlike the Worst Canadian contest, the Greatest Canadian had
organization and resources of the CBC; something a small
history magazine couldn't muster. If the Beaver magazine
had the resources of the CBC, the outcome might have been
different.

In all, 1.2 million Canadians voted on line for the Greatest
Canadian. First they nominated 140,000 persons for the
honour. That list was eventually distilled down to ten.
Then advocates for each of the top ten argued the merits of
their candidate

In contrast, The Beaver magazine's contest was more modest;
15,000 on-line votes were cast. There was limited
advertising and no televised debates in which advocates made
a case for their selection of loathing.

On-line voting creates to distortions. Winnipeg-based punk
rocker Chris Hannah campaigned for worst Canadian saying "I
don't stand during the singing of O Canada." His notoriety
campaign paid off; he came in second.

Forgive me for rolling my eyes in disbelief: not standing
for our national anthem doesn't quite compare with torture.

If the CBC established the gold standard on how to run a
contest, our Greatest Kamloopsian contest was at the other
end of the scale. We received 640 votes.

The Greatest Kamloopsian was sponsored by the local Council
of Canadians and run a shoestring budget. Instead of
on-line voting, ballots were purchased for one dollar. It
was supposed to be a fund-raiser but when votes just
trickled in, the proceeds were directed to the United Way in
hopes of increasing participation.

I first became aware of the twisted Kamloops Kid while
compiling a list of great Kamloopsians. He was easily
discarded.

I didn't care much for Kamloopsian Peter Ogden either. He
murdered an Indian in Green Lake just because he traded with
Ogden's rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. Ogden abandoned
his wife and family in 1821 and became a fugitive from
justice in Kamloops. Ogden was never convicted and remained
unremorseful. He glibly explained to a visitor: "we must
sometimes perform the parts of judge, jury, sheriff,
hangman, gallows, all."

The inclusion of the Billy Miner was more controversial.
Was he a candidate for best or worst Kamloopsian? Was he a
colourful folk hero or convicted criminal? Both, it would
seem.

Will there be a Worst Kamloopsian contest? I don't think
so.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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