Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Chrétien’ Category

Sir Charles Tupper can boast to having the longest marriage of any Canadian Prime Minister. He was already married for 48 years when he became the head of government and ended up being together with Frances Morse for 66 years. The second longest marriage is that of Jean Chrétien and Aline Chainé, married for 53 [...]

Read Full Post »

A growing number of people are aware that January 11 is Sir John A. Macdonald‘s birthday. The government has declared the date to be Sir John A. Macdonald Day. The celebration of his birthday gets bigger every year in his Canadian hometown: Kingston. Canada’s first Prime Minister was born in 1815 in Glasgow, Scotland. Less [...]

Read Full Post »

There have been eight. Since the creation of the Order of Canada on July 1, 1967, only two former Prime Ministers have not received it. John Diefenbaker was still an MP at the time of his death in 1979; sitting politicians are ineligible for the honour. Paul Martin stepped down as an MP in 2008; [...]

Read Full Post »

Realistically, there were eight. Four of them were francophones: Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Louis St. Laurent, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien. Four were English: Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. The PM with the broadest facility for languages was English-speaking Sir Robert Borden who had a working knowledge of French, German, Greek and [...]

Read Full Post »

Five of the seven Prime Ministers still living are Roman Catholics. Although, historically, most Catholic leaders tended to be French Canadians, that profile began to disappear by the late 1970s. Of the five living Catholic PMs — Joe Clark, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin — only one is French Canadian. For [...]

Read Full Post »

Interested in being the Canadian Prime Minister? Consider becoming a lawyer. That’s the exactly the kind of job training two-thirds of the country’s leaders had prior to their shift into politics. Prime Ministers called to the bar were Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir John Abbott, Sir John Thompson, Sir WIlfrid Laurier, Sir Robert Borden, Arthur [...]

Read Full Post »

Seven of Canada’s 22 Prime Ministers have represented Quebec while leading the country (Abbott, Laurier, St. Laurent, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien and Martin), making it the most fertile ground for leaders since Confederation. Three provinces have had no Prime Ministers serving in Ottawa (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland), although King was a PEI  MP before [...]

Read Full Post »

The cabinet of Sir John A. Macdonald in 1987-88 included John Abbott (Without Portfolio), John Thompson (Justice), Mackenzie Bowell (Customs) and Sir Charles Tupper (Finance). The next largest collection of PMs-to-be was in the cabinet of Lester Pearson in 1967-68. They were Pierre Trudeau (Justice), John Turner (Consumer & Corporate Affairs) and Jean Chrétien (Without [...]

Read Full Post »

1968 — In his first test since becoming Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau wins Canada’s 28th federal election, defeating the Progressive Conservatives under their new leader, Robert Stanfield. Benefiting from a national attack of Trudeaumania, he attracts enough votes to gain majority government status. Other former and future PMs re-elected are John Diefenbaker, John Turner and [...]

Read Full Post »

2009 — Former Governor-General Roméo LeBlanc dies in Grand-Digue, New Brunswick. Originally recommended by former Prime Minister and cabinet colleague Jean Chrétien in 1995, LeBlanc was the first Speaker of the Senate to become Canada’s vice-regal representative, but not the first politician. Other Governors-General who served as MPs were Roland Michener, Ed Schreyer, Jeanne Sauvé [...]

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.