Talk:List of prime ministers of Canada

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I have a problem with the list of Prime Ministers having many of the early parties fall under the category of 'Historical Conservative Parties,' as it paints a misleading political picture imo, which attempts to make the parties of old look like a continuity with the Conservative Party. For instance why should the Liberal-Conservatives be called 'historical conservative parties,' when they could just as soon be called 'historical liberal parties.' To paint them either way is misleading. It would seem better to use a different colour entirely for parties that are neither liberal or conservative, perhaps orange, green, purple, yellow, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Indiansummermh (talk • contribs) 21:17, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comment, Indiansummermh. To the best of my knowledge, there is a continuity of the historical conservative parties listed here. The Liberal-Conservative Party wasn't a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives; it was the name of the Conservative Party until they changed it to just "Conservative Party" in 1873, "Unionist Party" in 1917, "National Liberal and Conservative Party" in 1920, and finally to "Progressive Conservative Party" in 1942. The Liberal Party was a completely separate party during the entire time the Conservatives were using each of those names. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:00, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

List of Prime Ministers

With the table the legend shows the colour key and the 3 party groups and its colour but there's no colour with any Prime Minister row section. Tyman222 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Its the first column under "No." -- Moxy (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I am seeing it shaded in gray. Could it perhaps be because I'm on my iPhone? Tyman222 (talk • contribs) 19:22, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I believe I fixed it by editing Template:Canadian first minister list. 117Avenue (talk) 02:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes you did. Thanks. Tyman222 (talk • contribs) 04:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Stephan Harper

Stephen Harper did not resign or ceased to be Prime Minister on election night 2015. He's still Prime Minister until he resigns & Justin Trudeau is sworn in. At times like these, I wish IPs were barred from editing Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 14:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

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Correction he resigned as head of the party on election night. Also I am Canadian and have been following the media around the election and both the Canadian Parliament and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) have stated on Oct. 30, 2015 that on Nov. 4, 2015 on Harper will cease to be Prime Minister, and Justin Trudeau be signed in. Therefore, the date SHOULD be included in preparation for that date.

112.208.148.105 (talk) 08:19, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

We don't include the date until Harper actually resigns. GoodDay (talk) 08:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Re Stephen Harper 2006-3015. Why is Afghanistan Mission listed under Harper and not earlier? The first group was sent before Harper in 2001. OP Athena was also before Harper in 2003 -2005. AcornAndMaple (talk) 14:09, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Moved from List of Canadian ministries

We need sources for the bellow--Moxy (talk) 22:51, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

• By convention, each Canadian ministry is formed when the chairing prime minister is appointed and dissolved when s/he leaves office. The one exception occurred during the premiership of Robert Borden whose wartime Unionist government is considered a separate ministry from the one he chaired as head of a Conservative government. Elections do not cause dissolution of the ministry unless they result in the government's defeat – this is in contrast to other Commonwealth realms such as Australia and the United Kingdom where a "new" ministry is considered to have been formed after every election regardless of the winner. Therefore, the twenty-eight ministries that have served Canada represent twenty-six occasions since Canadian Confederation that the premiership has changed hands and one occasion when a coalition government was formed by the sitting prime minister.

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Full Names

I reverted an editor who had changed every name to their legal full name (eg. Justin Trudeau --> Justin Pierre James Trudeau) and added British nobility titles (eg. Viscount Bennett). Seems like pretty blatant WP:TMI. Madg2011 (talk) 19:27, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 19:33, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

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Joe Clark

For some reason Joe Clark was omitted from the list of living former PMs. After checking the news to make sure he didn't pass on when I wasn't looking, I put him back in. 70.73.90.119 (talk) 21:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Laurier removing the right of status Indians to vote

The article simply states (unsourced) that Laurier removed the right of status Indians to vote. It's unsourced and doesn't feature as notable, and also does not give proper context (based on my independent research). Voting had been extended by Macdonald to those status Indians "in possession and occupation of a separate and distinct tract of land in such reserve, and whose improvements on such separate tract are not of the value of at least one hundred and fifty dollars" who lived in Ontario or eastward. But all other status Indians were excluded already (which was the large majority). How can this be properly qualified (and is it notable in light of this qualification)? See https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indigenous-suffrage Homagetocatalonia (talk) 16:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Post-1968 dates

I had to correct the dates for the prime ministers (P. Trudeau to J. Trudeau), concerning taking office & resigning. We used to have something in place to explain why the resignation dates were different & showed both dates (but somebody deleted it). Meanwhile, somebody else changed the assumption of office dates, which I just had to correct. GoodDay (talk) 03:32, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm a little confused here. Are we following the Interpretation Act and using the PM's last full day in office as the end of term, or using the half-day where they submit their resignation? Because the note at the bottom says Under the Act, prime ministers' tenures are therefore credited as having concluded at the end of their last full day in office, although their resignation was received by the governor general on the following day., which seems to suggest we're counting the end of a PM's term by their last full day. But if you look at the actual dates, we aren't, with the same day being used for one PM's last day and another PM's first day. Do the dates need to be changed, or does the wording need to be changed? — Kawnhr (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

List of prime ministers of Canada by age

Please see my suggestion at Talk:List of prime ministers of Canada by time in office#List of prime ministers of Canada by age. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 23:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Repetition

There is already an article on the Prime Minister of Canada. Why are we repeating all that information here? Shouldn't this article just be a list of prime ministers? 76.66.143.234 (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Tupper and Meighen's seats, or lack thereof

Tupper and Meighen (second time)'s seats are Did not hold a seat in legislature. This was not always the case, as you can see in this old revision.

I assume this has to do with the old practice of ministerial by-elections (and that a general election was called before they could hold a by-election). But this seems like an overcorrection to me. Even if they were without a seat during this period, the reason they were called on to form a ministry in the first place was because they did have a seat immediately prior to being called. It seems misleading to put Tupper and Meighen, who only lacked a seat due to the practice of the time, on the same level with Turner and Carney, who actually did receive the top job without any seat in the Commons.

(Also, are we sure that Tupper actually resigned? I thought that ministers didn't need to resign when being appointed to a new ministry, and Tupper was already a member of cabinet. Did becoming PM always necessitate a by-election? Because I don't see any indication that John Sparrow Thompson had to re-contest his seat.)

I think it would be better to list their seats. If need be, with a footnote about the ministerial by-elections. — Kawnhr (talk) 17:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

For Tupper, I basically agree: ministerial by-elections were already seen as a formality and it was common practice for the other parties to step aside and let the minister win by acclamation. But technically, following the convention, Tupper would have resigned his seat upon appointing a Cabinet before the 1896 election, and that Cabinet never faced parliament nor ministerial by-elections, and Tupper never sat in the House as prime minister (and never represented Cape Breton as prime minister, likewise) so it's a bit iffy.

Meighen, on the other hand, should be listed as "did not hold a seat". His second term came after the King-Byng affair, and he tried to appoint a Cabinet of ministers without portfolio to avoid the ministerial by-election convention because it would have left his minority parliament vulnerable to a no-confidence vote, but the members of his Cabinet who held portfolios actually did resign their seats, including Meighen (I'm getting this from Canadian Encyclopedia; our own articles aren't clear on this). His government did fall on a no-confidence vote over what the Liberals and Progressives saw as an abuse of convention, and the Liberals were returned to power in the subsequent election, so Meighen in fact did serve as prime minister while not holding a seat. He also was defeated for his seat in the subsequent general election. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:09, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm aware that Meighen automatically losing his seat was a political headache for him, but I still think simply saying he "did not hold a seat" is misleading; he had won a seat in the immediately preceding election, that was why the GG called on him. Meighen's whole claim to the job was that he was in Parliament. But as our list stands, it looks more like the GG dismissed King and then invited someone from outside Parliament to head the new ministry.

King-Byng was a messy situation, I grant. But I don't think "Did not hold a seat" with no further explanation helps readers; in fact, a reader might not even know something's amiss or worth looking into. I think we should restore the riding but give it a footnote: "Vacated seat due to laws at the time requiring ministerial by-elections; never actually rejoined Parliament during time as Prime Minister" (we could also do it in reverse — "Did not have a seat" with a footnote saying which riding they previously held — but this way is a little more efficient since we could re-use the exact footnote for Tupper). And there ought to be something in the accomplishments field, too: say, "Attempted to prevent further ministerial by-elections by appointing "acting ministers"; defeated on a no-confidence motion." — Kawnhr (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Deciding which portfolios to list for each PM

In the PM's accomplishments field, it's typical to list portfolios they've held. But while some of them exhaustively list every portfolio the person held (eg: Meighen, Campbell), others only list one or two and omit others (Macdonald was also minister of militia in the Province of Canada; Tupper had several other posts, gradually increasing in importance). Even Chrétien, which already lists seven, is actually three short. So there's an inconsistency that should be fixed, but how? Do we want to be comprehensive and list every leader's prior portfolios? Or should we scale it back and list only the portfolios of greatest importance (and/or the post they had last)? The latter option is more subjective but the full lists can certainly get long.

Another option is to remove these entirely and only list the portfolios they held simultaneously as PM. We do note that J. Trudeau was also minister of intergovernmental affairs, and others kind of get there by chance (Thompson was minister of justice as PM, keeping the role he had in his predecessor's cabinet). — Kawnhr (talk) 18:40, 29 April 2025 (UTC)