A new report from a public policy think tank rates Canadian leaders of provinces since 1981..and has also created playing card ratings for the 80 Provincial Premiers ranked.

A new report from a public policy think tank rates Canadian leaders of provinces since 1981..and has also created playing card ratings for the 80 Provincial Premiers ranked.
Photo Credit: AHA Insights Inc

Rate your Canadian politician

Ranking of Premiers of Canadian provinces past and present

A new think-tank in Canada has released a study of the performances of Canadian premiers, the leaders of individual provinces.

The new think-tank “Aha Insights Inc” proposes to be an interactive group while it produces studies on a wide range of issues and situation.

With the current federal election, AHA proposed to study the performance and track record of the various provincial governments with similar policies from 1981 to the present. It looked at the records of 80 premiers of the Canadian provinces during that period.

According to the rankings the best currently serving Premier is Brad Wall of the Saskatchewan Party, and the worst current Premier is Kathleen Wynne of the Liberal Party of Ontario
According to the rankings the best currently serving Premier is Brad Wall of the Saskatchewan Party, and the worst current Premier is Kathleen Wynne of the Liberal Party of Ontario © AHA Insights Inc

The CEO of AHA , economist Mark Mullins says, “We ranked Canadian premiers using eleven fiscal and economic outcomes, such as job growth, balanced budgets, and business investment and we found that leadership and fiscal and economic policies really do matter.”

Co-author of the study Mark Milke, policy analyst, author and political scientist,  added “This study can serve as a reference guide to the federal election since three decades of evidence shows there is a close link between premiers’ party affiliation and what they achieve in office.”

The study determined that former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris was the best provincial premier. He led Canada’s most populous province from June 1995 to April 2002, and was most noted for his “Common Sense Revolution” of deficit reduction, cuts to government programmes, and tax cuts.

The AHA rankings placed former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris at the top of the list of Premeirs since 1981
The AHA rankings placed former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris at the top of the list of Premeirs since 1981 © AHA Insight

The worst premier was Pauline Marois of the separatist Parti Quebecois who led the mostly French-speaking province of Quebec from September 2012 to April 2014.

The best current premier was Brad Wall leader of the conservative leaning Saskatchewan Party, while the warst was judged to be Ontario Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne

The study estimated that relatively speaking and as a group, Alberta has had the best leadership in the past three and a half decades, while Quebec has had the worst.

The new rankings ranked former Quebec separatist leader Pauline Marois as the worst Premier since 1981
The new rankings ranked former Quebec separatist leader Pauline Marois as the worst Premier since 1981 © AHA Insight Inc

In their study, AHA qualifies its efforts to correlate provincial and federal party similaries saying that, “there can be significant differences among parties with the same name. The opposition Liberal party in Alberta in the late 1980s and early 1990s was more fiscally and economically conservative than the Progressive Conservatives under then Premier Don Getty. Ontario Liberals today are closer in policy to New Democrats on labour union issues than to the same-named party in British Columbia.”

The think-tank’s first foray into the public spotlight hit a bit of a pothole however, as the listing for Nova Scotia’s former premier Donald William Cameron, instead showed an image of well-known author Silver Donald Cameron.

AHA CEO, Mark Mullins is an economist, consultant, and former executive director with the well-established public policy think tank the Fraser Institute, a conservative leaning organization. He was also an advisor to the Ontario Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris

The report is available HERE

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