Biographies of Canadian Prime Ministers | ||
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Sources
Considerable research by the author of this webpage went into creating this annotated list of biographies. Important sources include: • The official & complete list of Prime Ministers of Canada on the Parliament of Canada website. • Wikipedia's List of books, including biographies, about the Prime Ministers of Canada. |
After reaching the end of 2020, I could no longer read any more POTUS biographies, we were living it. I went back to my eclectic reading list, but by early 2023 found myself reading two titles by Jesse Thistle: his Master's thesis The Puzzle of the Morrissette-Arcand Clan: A History Of Metis Historic and Intergenerational Trauma, and his own biography From the ashes: my story of being indigenous, homeless, and finding my way. I then had the epiphany to read about the Canadian equivalent of our POTUS.
I knew I was ignorant of Canadian history, but was subsequently shocked to learn so are most of Canadians (according to learned Canadian historians). Canada, as a member of the British Commonwealth, is a constitutional monarchy. This means that while our POTUS is the Head of State, the Canadian Head of State is (currently) King Charles III, as represented through the Governor General. In a constitutional monarchy, the Crown assumes distinct roles: the executive, as the Crown-in-Council; the legislative, as the Crown-in-Parliament; and the judicial, as the Crown-on-the-Bench. Three institutions - the Privy Council (conventionally, the Cabinet), the Parliament, and the Judiciary, respectively - exercise the powers of the Crown.
Confused? It would take too many more paragraphs to explain this better (especially to Americans). Let us focus on the Canadian position of Prime Minister which is most closely related to the POTUS.
The Canadian federal government's organization and structure was established at Confederation, through the July 1, 1867 British North America Act, wherein the Canadian Crown acts as the core, or "the most basic building block", of its Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. The monarch, King Charles III, is personally represented by a Governor General (presently Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon) who is the head of state. A Prime Minister is the head of government, who is invited by the Crown to form a government after securing the confidence of the House of Commons, which is typically determined through the election of enough members of a single political party in a federal election to provide a majority of seats in Parliament, forming a governing party. Further elements of governance are outlined in the rest of the Canadian constitution, which includes written statutes in addition to court rulings and unwritten conventions developed over centuries.
Canada has mostly a two-party system, but there is not a term limit on the Prime Minister, nor does their term as Prime Minister need to be continuous. Thus, some Prime Ministers served very short terms (69 days, 79 days, 132 days) and others very long single (10 yrs, 15 yrs) and multiple terms (6 and 13 yrs spanning 3 Ministries over 24 yrs; 4 and 4 and 13 yrs spanning 5 Ministries over 27 yrs).
From 1867 - 2023 there have been 23 Canadian Prime Ministers, whereas in the United States, from George Washington (1789) to Joe Biden (2023), exactly twice as many - 46. But from an equivalent time span (1867 - 2023) there have been 25 POTUS.
These differences make reading each Canadian Prime Minister's biography an interlocking and complex weaving of other Prime Ministers and parties. Yet it also provides excellent insight into the government and governing of Canada. And it also indisputably reinforced the adage about history repeating itself. I found myself reading about the Canadian politics and personalities of 100 years ago and thinking I was reading today's news - it was that similar. Mostly because people and politicians are the same everyplace and all epochs. But also clearly understand, Canada is not a 'junior' United States. The overriding sentiment from the inception of the semi-independent Dominion of Canada (the country’s formal title, first applied to Canada at Confederation in 1867) was that it would not adopt the politics or culture of the United States.
My intention with respect to buying each of the books I review, of course, is to avoid the appearance that a publisher is trying to gain a favorable review by providing a book free. That's not really a problem for older books, but I've just found it's easier to make a blanket statement and stick to it.
I did not take that high road with this list. Conversely, I couldn't take the low road either since there is a disappointedly low number of books available, especially in the early years.
Richard Gwyn (author of the two John Macdonald biographies I read) noted in 2009 the paucity of works available, "in Canada, history really is often treated as "bunk"...Canada settles for so few [biographies] - precariously close to none at all." Gwyn hoped his two volume bio would encourage other writers to add to the historical library. Gwyn died in 2020 disappointed. This 2019 article in The Globe and Mail [with a weekly readership of 2 million, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper] exposes these frustrations with We don’t have the prime minister biographies we deserve – and Canadian history suffers for it. This is a link to the PDF version of that article.
As you will see from my biography list below, some Prime Ministers are only a footnote, presumably because of their short time in office. Yet even American President William Harrison, who was in office for just 31 days, has many full bios. Many Canadian PMs are given high school level biographies in educational book series.
Intermediary level biographies can be found in the online version of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Written by experts, they tend to run 4-8 thousand words (10-20 pages) which consequently can not hope to go into great depth or touch on all relevant topics.
There are 9,000 biographies on that website which describe the lives of those whose deaths or whose last-known activities occurred in the years 1000 to 1930. A growing number of biographies of individuals who died between 1930 -2000 is being added (about 400 to date). There are 37 Occupations and Other Identifiers, and it does not include all of the Prime Ministers. It is nevertheless an excellent and exemplary source of information. James Nicholson, a Toronto businessman, who, at his death in 1952, left the residue and bulk of his estate to the University of Toronto for the purpose of creating a biographical reference work for Canada of truly national importance. The Dictionary commenced in 1959 with the mandate "the object [of a biographical dictionary of Canada] shall be not only to supply an acknowledged want in Canadian literature, but ... it should compete with or even surpass works of a similar character produced elsewhere."
Perhaps not surprisingly, at least for the first half of Canadian PMs, the biographies in print are not available in U.S. city libraries, and sparse even via InterLibrary Loan using WorldCat.
Sometimes it seemed like a conspiracy. For example, during a search for Sir Laurier I tried to locate "Wilfrid Laurier" by Andre Pratte (2011) [part of the "Extraordinary Canadians" series.] Not surprisingly it was not in the Plano library catalog, but WorldCat did list it in the Texas Group, and, reported that Plano actually had it. But they did not. The Plano library confirmed that in the past they did hold that title, but no longer have it. They now plan to updated the holdings on their WorldCat account (which will take time.), This was not the first time I found errors and omissions between WorldCat and the libraries they database.
Other Internet resources were helpful, and I have purchased some of the books. I obtained one by special dispensation as it was not available to buy from any seller and only 8 copies existed in all of North America. The most interesting side stories about how I got my hands on a particular book will be hyperlinked in the List section.
The British Booker Prize is awarded to the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. No Canadian PM biographies.
The Michener Award is a prestigious award dedicated to "meritorious public service journalism" - Canada’s own Pulitzer Prize. No Canadian PM biographies.
The Canada Council for the Arts supervises the Governor General's Literary Awards, presented to English-language and French-language books in each of the following seven categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Drama, Young People’s Literature – Text, Young People’s Literature – Illustrated Books and Translation (from French to English and vice versa).
Finally we have some winners:
"John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician" Vol 1 by Donald G. Creighton. Macmillan Co. of Canada 1952.
"John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain" Vol 2 by Donald G. Creighton. Macmillan Co. of Canada 1955.
"Trudeau and Our Times" Vol 1 by Stephen Clarkson, Christina McCall. McClelland & Stewart 1990.
Related but not a biography, "The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier" by Sandra Gwyn McClelland & Stewart 2008.
The John W. Dafoe Book Prize is awarded to the best book on Canada, Canadians, and/or Canada’s place in the world published in the previous calendar year. The Prize memorializes John Wesley Dafoe, one of the most significant Canadian editors of the 20th century. With regards to Prime Ministers:
Awarded 1993. John English. Lester B. Pearson: The Worldly Years. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf.
Awarded 1995. Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson. Trudeau and Our Times, Volume 2. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Awarded 2007. John English. Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1919-1968, Volume One. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf
Awarded 2012. Richard J. Gwyn, Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times. Toronto: Random House.
Awarded 2016. David Mulroney. Middle Kingdom, Middle Power: What Canadians Need to Know About China in the 21st Century. Toronto: Allen Lane Canada/Penguin Random House Canada.
It was not my intention to read as many biographies on each Prime Minister as I could access and then create a ranking of them for each PM. That would take me a decade as a slow reader and having other activities I wished to engage in. Thus I tried to identify the best one or two volumes per Prime Minister based on reading other reviews, but especially the foreword of the author and the author's credentials to ascertain scholarship and objectivity. I also wanted as much distance in years to help put in the historical perspective. Occasionally, hagiography was permitted but was balanced by reading an objective work. Since each successive bio partially recapitulated previous Prime Minister(s) political life, reading them sequentially added a parallel discussion by allies and opponents and certainly balanced my overall knowledge on an individual PM.
The listing will sometimes list those books which I specifically did not read. There will be links to my expanded explanations on a particular book. Autobiographies & memoirs were not considered biographies as they inherently lack objectivity and balance.
My rating system is similar to a school grade: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent. My subjective assessment included how entertaining the biography proves to be and the biography’s historical value (which improved as I read more and more books). If a comparison is needed, my assessment of biographies matches closely with Steve Floyd's ratings of the American Presidents.
A considerable amount of demographic, honorary titles, and political information is associated with each Prime Minister, and I chose to list only a few items. The most complex is their Political Affiliation. A single PM may have belonged to more than one Party, and over the decades, even the same Party name (e.g. Conservative versus Progressive Conservative Party) would represent different philosophies.
Britannica defines a political party as a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power for the purpose of directing the policies of a government. Political parties originated in their modern form in Europe, Canada and the United States in the 19th century, along with the electoral and parliamentary systems, whose development reflects the evolution of parties. The term party has since come to be applied to all organized groups seeking political power, whether by democratic elections or by revolution.
The List of Biographies
The Right Hon. Sir John Alexander Macdonald P.C., Q.C., G.C.B., K.C.B., M.P. (born 11 Jan, 1815 - died 6 Jun, 1891) Political Party: Liberal-Conservative |
Not read
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The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie P.C., M.P. (born 28 Jan, 1822 - died 17 Apr, 1892) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
Not read as it received outside scathing reviews.
Read here.
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The Hon. Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott P.C., Q.C., K.C.M.G., M.P., Senator (born 12 Mar, 1821 - died 30 Oct, 1893) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
Nota bene There is no dedicated, full biography on the 3rd Prime Minister (as of 2023). Ms. Abbott (a distant relative of the Prime Minister) compiled "notes" related to him. This work is a curious collection of facts and speculation. How I obtained this rare, and unsatisfactory, treatise is noteworthy. Read here. |
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The Right Hon. Sir John Sparrow David Thompson P.C., Q.C., K.C.M.G., M.P. (born 10 Nov, 1845 - died 12 Dec, 1894) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
* John Castell Hopkins (b.1864-d.1923) was a bank clerk, author, and imperialist. Like most imperialists, Hopkins was suspicious of possible aggression by the United States and he loathed what he saw as its excessive democracy and materialism. He provided hagiographical depictions of groups who championed the British connection, such as chosen individuals such as Prime Minister Sir John Sparrow David Thompson who were squeezed into an imperial mould, regardless of their true sentiments.
Not read, but contained recommendations to the 2nd and 3rd biographies rated above.
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The Hon. Sir Mackenzie Bowell P.C., K.C.M.G., M.P., Senator (born 27 Dec, 1823 - died 10 Dec, 1917) Political Party: Conservative (1867-1942) |
Not read, not a biography.
Not read.
Not read, but an excellent review in
Literary Review of Canada
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The Right Hon. Sir Charles Tupper MD, P.C., K.C.M.G., G.C.M.G., C.B., M.P (born 2 Jul, 1821 - died 30 Oct, 1915) Political Party: Conservative (1867-1942) |
Not read.
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The Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier P.C., K.C., G.C.M.G., M.P. (born 20 Nov, 1841 - died 17 Feb, 1919) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
Not read.
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The Right Hon. Sir Robert Laird Borden P.C., K.C., G.C.M.G., M.P. (born 26 Jun, 1854 - died 10 Jun, 1937) Political Parties: Conservative (1867-1942) (1896-06-23 - 1917-12-16) Unionist (1917-12-17 - 1921-12-05) |
• English, John (1977) Borden: his life and world
Not read, not a biography.
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The Right Hon. Arthur Meighen P.C., Q.C., M.P., Senator (born 16 Jun, 1874 - died 5 Aug 1960) Political Parties: Unionist (1917-12-17 - 1921-12-05) Conservative (1867-1942) (1921-12-06 - 1942-01-16) |
* The story how I got Google Books to let me read Vol III. No Surrender
Not read, not a biography.
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The Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King Ph.D, P.C., O.M., C.M.G., M.P. (born 17 Dec, 1874 - died 22 Jul, 1950) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
* Robert MacGregor Dawson FRSC (b.1895-d.1958) was a Professor of Political Economy at the Univ. of Toronto and co-author of the classic 1947 textbook, The Government of Canada. He finished the first volume of King's biography before his death in Bridgewater Nova Scotia, CA, in 1958. In 1975, he was named a Person of National Historic Significance. (A person is eligible to be listed 25 years after death, but Prime Ministers may be designated any time after death.) Most authors of non-fiction reserve making any direct humorous comments about their subject. However, I must reproduce a section in this book which is the most excellent use of Irony and Pun. ** Preface from Volume 2. "Professor Dawson died shortly after writing the first volume. He had completed a later section of Mr. King's life which has since been published under the title The Conscription Crisis of 1944. Professor Dawson had also done some work on what was to have been his second volume. He left a manuscript for the period 1923 to the election of 1925 and a preliminary draft of the controversy with Lord Byng in 1926. ... I [Neatby] did not hesitate to incorporate some of his ideas and even some of his phrases in my study of this period. I only regret that he had not completed a preliminary outline for the rest of the book. " *** King was PM over three Ministries - 12th (1921-26), 14th (1926-30), 16th (1935-40) and died 1950. Thus this third volume comes up short on his term of service and life. However, Neatby was explicitly under contract by King's Literary Executors to cover only the interwar years. Readers will be served to read Granatstein which does cover 1939-50. N.B. J. L. Granatstein OC FRSC (b.1939) is a Canadian historian who specializes in Canadian political and military history. He published Who Killed Canadian History? (1998) which argues that Canadians lack national unity because of their failure to teach their country's history.
Not read.
Not read, not a biography.
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The Right Hon. Richard Bedford Bennett P.C., K.C., K.G.St.J., M.P 1st Viscount Bennett of Mickleham, Calgary and Hopewell (House of Lords, UK Parliament) (born 3 Jul 1870 - died 26 Jun, 1947) Political Party: Conservative (1867-1942) |
Boyko says "Franklin Roosevelt was America's R.B. Bennett." He was referring that FDR instituted similar policies for the U.S. that Bennett had done for Canada. Although true, the analogy fails in an important respect, FDR was hailed a hero and success, whereas Bennett was voted out of office as a failure and lost to history. Bennett was America's Herbert Hoover. Boyko's biography is uneven, sometimes superficial, often hagiographic. A few new untold stories but more frequently commentary using the author's present (2012) as a reference point to compare Bennett with recent Canadian Prime Ministers without adding true insight into the biography. In terms of priority and authority, Boyko yields to Waite - on page 418 Boyko says "As noted by Bennett biographer Peter Waite" and follows with a quote from "In Search of R.B. Bennett" (2012) P.B. Waite p.19 (2012). Bennett was Prime Minister from 1930-1935, the years of the Great Depression. His policies and tribulations mirror that of Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945). Yet the Canadian and American leaders have been placed in vastly different historical perspectives. POTUS and PM rankings.
Not read.
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The Right Hon. Louis Stephen St-Laurent P.C., Q.C., C.C., M.P. (born 1 Feb, 1882 - died 25 Jul, 1973) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
*An abbreviated biography. Bothwell writes "The bibliography of Louis St-Laurent is lamentably brief." **This is the very best we have on St. Laurent. Although purported to only cover his time as PM, it begins with his genealogy back to Nicolas Huot Saint-Laurent who had arrived in New France around 1660 and continued for 252 pages to detail his early life and career to 1948 when he became the PM. It then provides his time as PM in detail and concludes in 1966 (since it was published in 1967). St. Laurent died in 1973 and the other two bios cover these last years sparingly. It is common that most biographers respect and admire their subject, but the best biography also requires adequate criticism and balance which this lacked. Additionally, since it was published only a decade after he concluded his political career, not enough time had lapse to place it into historical perspective. Dale Thomson was also the author of the 1960 bio Alexander Mackenzie: Clear Grit
Not read, not a biography.
•
My years with Louis St-Laurent: a political memoir by Pickersgill, J. W.
University of Toronto Press; Canadian First edition (1975)
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The Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker P.C., Q.C., F.R.S.C., F.R.S.A., M.P. (born 18 Sep, 1895 - died 16 Aug, 1979) Political Party: Progressive Conservative Party |
* This is the author's only non-fiction, but he did adequately research the topic in composing it. However, the defining adjective for this 180 page biography is young adult. It fits this definition by glossing over the true politics, ignoring opposing viewpoints, and simplifying real world issues. † According to the 1968 Intro for this 290 page account: "The definitive biography of John Diefenbaker remains to be written. This book is a series of impressions gathered in eight years’ observation as a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and a ministerial assistant in the Diefenbaker government; and a further four years as executive assistant to the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition." As such, it is not a biography, but provides biased personal and behind the scenes descriptions of Diefenbaker that are missing from other bios (a useful supplement to the other biographies). Van Dusen passed September 10, 2011 at age 90. ** This 700 page book (published in 1995) is the definitive biography. It is extremely well researched, and references Van Dusen's The Chief, Diefenbaker's Memoirs, plus 140 books, dozens of newspapers, government documents, interviews, and Archives in Canada and the United States. Importantly it is unbiased and surgically cuts through myth and apocryphal stories told in other books and by Diefenbaker himself. The book was awarded the Univ British Columbia's Medal in Canadian Biography, the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize for historical writing, nominated for the Trillium Book Award (English), and considered THE best Canadian PM biography by J.D.M. STEWART (Globe & Mail Mar 19, 2019). Steward was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions to history in Canada.
Not read, not biographies.
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The Right Hon. Lester Bowles Pearson P.C., C.C., O.M., O.B.E., M.P. (born 23 Apr, 1897 - died 27 Dec, 1972) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
* The definitive biography. From the Preface: "Material on his early years is sparse. Some letters to his parents exist, but exchanges with his brothers and friends before 1928, when he entered public service, are missing. Even afterwards, there is little family correspondence. Because of their frequent long separations, correspondence between Maryon Elspeth Pearson and her husband would probably have been abundant, but she apparently destroyed nearly all of it." Lester Pearson wrote inciteful articles home to the Methodist journal, The Christian Guardian, while he was at Oxford University which supplied important biographic information.
Nota bene
Pearson is the only Canadian PM to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1957). His
Nobel Lecture
is as pertinent today as it was 70 years ago.
Not read, not biographies.
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The Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau P.C., Q.C., C.C., F.R.S.C., M.P. (born 18 Oct, 1919 - died 28 Sep, 2000) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
Biography but not read.
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The Right Hon. Charles Joseph Clark P.C., C.C., A.O.E., M.P. (born 5 Jun, 1939) Political Party: Progressive Conservative Party |
Not a Biography but did read.
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The Right Hon. John Napier Turner P.C., C.C., Q.C., M.P. (born 7 Jun, 1929 - died 19 Sep, 2020) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
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The Right Hon. Martin Brian Mulroney P.C., C.C., G.O.Q., M.P. (born 20 Mar, 1939) Political Party: Progressive Conservative Party |
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The Right Hon. A. Kim Campbell P.C., Q.C., M.P. (born 10 Mar, 1947) Political Party: Progressive Conservative Party |
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The Right Hon. Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien P.C., Q.C., C.C., O.M., M.P. (born 11 Jan, 1934) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
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The Right Hon. Paul Edgar Philippe Martin P.C., C.C., M.P (born 28 Aug, 1938) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
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The Right Hon. Stephen Harper P.C., C.C., M.P. (born 30 Apr, 1959) Political Party: Conservative Party of Canada |
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The Right Hon. Justin Trudeau P.C., M.P. (born 25 Dec, 1971) Political Party: Liberal Party of Canada |
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Curriculum Vitae of Richard Dasheiff
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