Ten Outstanding Canadians

Earlier I named the ten most dangerous Canadians (now 11), so I thought I should even the balance by pointing to ten Canadians who have exerted leadership, insight and bravery such that they are outstanding and deserve praise.

Ten Outstanding Canadians

selected by Frank Hilliard

Every country and era throws up natural leaders; people of exceptional qualities or insight or determination and often all three together. They are not always in politics or in positions of leadership, but through their efforts and example, the public finds strength, purpose and direction. Herewith the ten I've selected:

Ezra Levant
Ezra is a force of nature; a lawyer, litigator and popularizer who almost single-handedly exposed the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and its provincial siblings, for the corrupt and power-mad thought police they are. His magazine, the Western Standard, was one of the few who published the notorious  'Danish cartoons' when the rest of the Main Stream Media ran for the exits. He continues to work for free speech, support for Israel and all the liberal democratic (conservative) causes I hold dear, as you can see on his blog.

Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is the highest profile and most outspoken Islamic critic with a Canadian background. Born in 1968, Irshad is a refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda. In 1972, she and her family escaped to Vancouver, where she grew up attending public schools and an Islamic madrasa. In 1990, she graduated with honors from the University of British Columbia, winning the Governor-General’s medal for top academic achievement in the humanities. She is the author of.The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith and is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University. It aims to develop leaders who will challenge political correctness, intellectual conformity and self-censorship.

Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn is the foremost Canadian-born political commentator writing today. He is the author of America Alone, which is the single most important political book published in the last few years as well as hundreds of must-read articles and commentaries in numerous publications. His regular column in Maclean's, for example,  is the one thing that keeps that magazine from sinking beneath waves of liberal  (Progressive) propaganda.

Conrad Black
Here is the man who launched the National Post, a signal gift to the nation that should have Ottawa demanding his release from prison and his immediate return to Canada. He should be in the Senate, not some Florida jail and God willing he will be. Black's other achievements, such as his magisterial biography of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, are legion. He shares honours, and wives, with my next nominee.

George Jonas
A Hungarian refugee, Jonas is a writer and producer, author, motorcycle racer and pilot who writes on political and social issues with a razor sharp intellect and gentle, self-depreciation. His book Beethoven's Mask: Notes on my life and times, is a must-read for any Canadian with social and political interests. Jonas is clearly on top of the two great threats of our times: statism in all its horrible variations, and Islam, in its.

Barbara Amiel
Perhaps Barbara Kay comes close, but Barbara Amiel, wife of the the two previous nominees, has a sharp mind, a droll delivery and a fierce passion for Israel, freedom and intellectual honesty. She can slice and dice with the best of them; a woman who takes no prisoners when she's in an argument.

Jim Hnatiuk
Jim is a retired Chief Petty Officer 1st Class in the Canadian Navy who now heads up the Christian Heritage Party, the sixth-largest political party in Canada. This is truly a daunting task, but his commitment to the right-to-life cause deserves widespread support. Anyone of good will who really thinks about what abortion involves should support his efforts. Incidentally, CHP Canada, like Ezra Levant, has called for the abolition of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Katey Montague
Katy is the daughter of gunsmith Bruce Montague, an Ontario native whose court battle against Bill C-68, the gun registry was a long, lonely and expensive crusade that won many supporters. Thus radicalized, Katey has become a gun and self-defence spokesperson with a YouTube site, Katey's Firearm Facts,  that shoots holes in the arguments of gun-control zealots in a way that relates to teens and adults alike.

Martin Collacott & James Bissett
Collacott and Bissett, both retired Canadian diplomats, are two of the leading voices who question Canada's wide-open immigration policy. They, and Andre Drouin of HEROUXVILLE, Que. are among the founders of a new group that aims to give the subject of immigration to Canada a thorough airing, with the goal of getting it reduced. They are also critics of multiculturalism as currently understood by Canadians and supporters of traditional, Judeo-Christian, liberal democratic values, as are others in this list.

Stephen McIntyre
Can one man change the world? Stephen McIntyre has certainly done so by exposing the Climate Change racket run by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. When the Climategate scandal broke, it was after years of effort by McIntyre exposing the phoney figures, the 'adjusted' graphs, the manipulated data of climate change fanatics. These individuals are all Progressive statists, committed to a Marxist-like attempt to direct people's lives, the very activity my first nominee is battling, as are the others.

So there you have it, ten (11 actually) outstanding Canadians.

Gentlemen, and ladies, I salute you.

Honourable Mentions
Kathy Shaidle (FiveFeetofFury)
Danielle Smith (Wildrose Alliance)
Rex Murphy
Barbara Kay
Margaret Wente
Rick Hillier 
Kate McMillan (SmallDeadAnimals)