Canada has had 22 Prime Ministers and, truth be told, over half of them can only be classified as failures. When you see names like Bowell, Turner, Campbell, and Meighen on the list of our former leaders, it’s not hard to wonder if there was anybody out there who could have done better.
Over the years, a lot of politicians have been given the title of “best Prime Minister Canada never had”. So for the rest of the summer, I’ll be weeding down a list of close to 100 would be Prime Ministers until one is crowned.My hope is that this will be a fun way to learn a bit about some great men and women who gave a lot to their country, without receiving the fame of glory of…say…Joe Clark.
The first round will be to cut the field down to 16, at which point the top 16 will be seeded for head to head battles (the four regional winners will get the top 4 seeds). You’re eligible to vote for up to 16 candidates every day, until noon on next Monday when the contest will be closed. Feel free to write endorsements and mobilize the vote for your candidate of choice; I’ll be profiling some of our coulda-been-PMs over the next week. The ballot is bellow and I’ve included links to biographies of all the contenders as well:
Atlantic Canada
Dalton Camp
John Crosbie
Joe Ghiz
Joseph Howe
Allan MacEachen
Angus MacLean
Alexa Mcdonough
Frank McKenna
George Murray
Jack Pickersgill
Joey Smallwood
Robert Stanfield
Samuel Tilley
Robert Winters
Clyde Wells
Quebec
Louise Arbour
Lucien Bouchard
Henri Bourassa
George Etienne Cartier
Maurice Duplesis
Adélard Godbout
Marc Lalonde
George-Émile Lapalme
Jean Lapierre
Ernest Lapointe
Pierre Laporte
Jean Lesage
Rene Levesque
Jean Marchand
D’Arcy McGee
Frank Scott
Ontario
Edward Blake
Ed Broadbent
George Brown
Sheila Copps
Bill Davis
George Drew
Eddie Goldenberg
Mike Harris
Paul Hellyer
CD Howe
Warren Kinsella
David Lewis
Stephen Lewis
Donald “The Donald” MacDonald
Flora MacDonald
Barbara MacDougall
John Manley
Paul Martin Sr.
Agnes Mcphail
Oliver Mowat
Allan Rock
Mitchell Sharp
OD Skelton
Western Canada
Bibble Bill Aberhart
Izzy Asper
Lloyd Axworthy
Dave Barrett
WAC Bennett
John Bracken
John Brownlee
Iona Campagnolo
Larry Campbell
MJ Coldwell
Stockwell Day
Gary Doer
Tommy Douglas
Gary Filmon
James Gardiner
Deb Grey
Mike Harcourt
Elijah Harper
Ralph Klein
Peter Lougheed
Ernest Manning
Preston Manning
Don Mazankowski
Nellie McClung
Audrey Mclaughlin
“Duff Man” Duff Roblin
Roy Romanow
Ed Schreyer
Clifford Sifton
HH Stevens
Wilhelmus Nicholaas Theodore Marie Vander Zalm
JS Woodsworth