This is a graphical lifespan timeline of prime ministers of Canada. Twenty-three people have served as the prime minister of Canada since the office came into existence in 1867. They are listed in order of office; prime ministers leading multiple ministries are listed in the order of their first premiership.
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Sir Mackenzie Bowell was a Canadian newspaper publisher and politician, who served as the fifth prime minister of Canada, in office from 1894 to 1896.
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but rather the head of government, serving as the chief of the executive under either a monarch or a president in a republican form of government.
The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the federal executive government. Under the principles of responsible government, the prime minister is both responsible to and a member of the Commonwealth Parliament. The current prime minister is Anthony Albanese of the Australian Labor Party, who assumed the office on 23 May 2022.
The prime minister of Canada is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the confidence of a majority of the elected House of Commons; as such, the prime minister typically sits as a member of Parliament (MP) and leads the largest party or a coalition of parties. As first minister, the prime minister selects ministers to form the Cabinet.
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet, and selects its ministers. As modern prime ministers hold office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, they sit as members of Parliament.
The prime minister of Japan is the head of government of Japan. The prime minister chairs the Cabinet of Japan and has the ability to select and dismiss its ministers of state. The prime minister also serves as the commander-in-chief of the Japan Self Defence Forces and is a sitting member of either house of the National Diet.
The governor general of Canada is the federal representative of the Canadian monarch, currently King Charles III. The king or queen of Canada is also monarch and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and lives in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the advice of his or her Canadian prime minister, appoints a governor general to administer the government of Canada in the monarch's name. The commission is for an indefinite period—known as serving at His Majesty's pleasure—though, five years is the usual length of term. Since 1959, it has also been traditional to alternate between francophone and anglophone officeholders. The 30th and current governor general is Mary Simon, who was sworn in on 26 July 2021. An Inuk leader from Nunavik in Quebec, Simon is the first aboriginal person to hold the office.
The House of Commons of Canada is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.
Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the third prime minister of Canada from 1891 to 1892. He held office as the leader of the Conservative Party.
Roméo-Adrien LeBlanc was a Canadian journalist and politician who served as 25th governor general of Canada from 1995 to 1999.
The deputy prime minister of Canada is a minister of the Crown and a member of the Canadian Cabinet. The office is conferred at the discretion of the prime minister and does not have an associated departmental portfolio. Canadian deputy prime ministers are appointed to the Privy Council and styled as the Honourable, a privilege maintained for life.
The Cabinet of Canada is a body of ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada. Chaired by the prime minister, the Cabinet is a committee of the King's Privy Council for Canada and the senior echelon of the Ministry, the membership of the Cabinet and Ministry often being co-terminal; as of November 2015 there were no members of the latter who were not also members of the former.
The King's Privy Council for Canada, sometimes called His Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council (PC), is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs. Practically, the tenets of responsible government require the sovereign or his viceroy, the governor general of Canada, to almost always follow only that advice tendered by the Cabinet: a committee within the Privy Council composed usually of elected members of Parliament. Those summoned to the KPC are appointed for life by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister of Canada, meaning that the group is composed predominantly of former Cabinet ministers, with some others having been inducted as an honorary gesture. Those in the council are accorded the use of an honorific style and post-nominal letters, as well as various signifiers of precedence.
John Whitney Pickersgill was a Canadian civil servant and politician. He was born in Ontario, but was raised in Manitoba. He was Clerk of the Privy Council in the early 1950s. He was first elected to federal parliament in 1953, representing a Newfoundland electoral district and serving in Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent's cabinet. In the mid-1960s, he served again in cabinet, this time under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Pickersgill resigned from Parliament in 1967 to become the president of the Canadian Transport Commission. He was awarded the highest level of the Order of Canada in 1970. He wrote several books on Canadian history. He died in 1997 in Ottawa.
Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell is a former Canadian politician, diplomat, lawyer, and writer who served as the 19th prime minister of Canada from June 1993 until her defeat in November that same year. Campbell is the first and only female prime minister of Canada. Prior to becoming the final Progressive Conservative (PC) prime minister, she was also the first woman to serve as minister of justice in Canadian history and the first woman to become minister of defence in a NATO member state.
The Twenty-Ninth Canadian Ministry is the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that began governing Canada shortly before the opening of the 42nd Parliament. The original members were sworn in during a ceremony held at Rideau Hall on November 4, 2015. Those who were not already members of the privy council were sworn into it in the same ceremony. The Cabinet currently consists of 35 members including Trudeau, with 17 women and 18 men. When the ministry was first sworn in, with 15 men and 15 women, it became the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history.
