Jump to content

Talk:Spouse of the prime minister of Canada

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Untitled

[edit]

This article is problematic, IMO. The prime minister's wife is not generally referred to as "the first lady of Canada."

In fact, I believe that it is inaccurate. Canada's Head of State is the Governor General. The "first lady" would thus logically be that person (when the GG is a woman, as no hi my name is the don of usa hey first lady w), or that person's wife (when the GG is a man).

However, the termlk "first lady" is really an American idea. I remember when Mila Mulrooney was criticised for acting as though she was "first lady" when Brian Mulrooney was prime minister.

I think that the title of the article should be changed. How about "Spouse of the Canadian prime minister"? Sunray 00:48, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)

--

I agree that it's problematic and should be changed. However, SD6-Agent, who created this page, also created pages for every prime ministerial spouse, all of which link back here (and almost always including some equally dubious bunk about "formally known as Lady (Husband's Surname)", hfhas if that were any more historically supportable), so fixing it will involve a lot of work. In the meantime, I added the contextual bit about how "first lady" is a "recent and very unofficial designation", which hopefully should suffice until you or I or someone else actually has the time to do all the fixin'. Bearcat 09:23, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I take your point. Sunray 11:08, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)
Almost finished fixing that whole mess -- I redirected it to Spouses of the Prime Ministers of Canada, along with editing most First Lady references out of the biographies and redirecting the biographies, where appropriate (ie. not for Maureen McTeer) to the names that are most likely to be searched for (ie. married surnames, middle names in a couple of cases where the spouse was known by that name more than by her given first name.) Yowza. Bearcat 17:27, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Nice work! It was easy to move in and add a reference to the Canadian head of state, and then do some tidying up (copy edit). I also took out a reference to "first couple" that remained in the piece on Margaret Trudeau. Sunray 20:36, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)
Thanks. Nice to "meet" you, by the way! Bearcat 21:47, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If I was the original creator of this page (which I am) why isn't this indicated in the page history [1]?SD6-Agent 6 July 2005 04:53 (UTC)

Ain't got a clue. You are, however, on the history at the redirect First Lady of Canada. Bearcat 07:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Adding images to list of spouses

[edit]

I suggest we restructure the table to look something like the table below. This article is about the spouses of the Prime Ministers and I don't think the ones with out spouses need to be mentioned. Also, I the spouses should only be list once regardless of how many different times their husband was in office - it just simplifies things. And last but certainly not least (considering this was my reason for the changes to begin with), I suggest a portrait of each of the wifes be added the list (like in List of First Ladies of the United States). Only problem is, as you can see, we don't have portraits of all the spouses. Really this is the main reason I didn't just go ahead with the changes myself. Any other suggestions?

Spouse Dates Prime Minister
1 Portrait of Agnes Macdonald Agnes Macdonald July 1, 1867 – November 5, 1873
October 17, 1878 – June 6, 1891
Sir John A. Macdonald
2 Portrait of Jane Mackenzie Jane Mackenzie November 7, 1873 – October 8, 1878 Alexander Mackenzie
3 Mary Bethune Abbott June 16, 1891 – November 24, 1892 Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott
4 Portrait of Annie Thompson Annie Thompson December 5, 1892 – December 12, 1894 Sir John Sparrow David Thompson
5 Portrait of Frances Tupper Frances Tupper May 1, 1896 – July 8, 1896 Sir Charles Tupper
6 Portrait of Zoë Laurier Zoé Laurier July 11, 1896 – October 7, 1911 Sir Wilfrid Laurier
7 Laura Borden October 10, 1911 – July 10, 1920 Sir Robert Laird Borden
8 Isabel Meighen July 10, 1920 – December 29, 1921
June 29, 1926 – November 25, 1926
Arthur Meighen
9 Jeanne St. Laurent November 15, 1948 – June 21, 1957 Louis Stephen St. Laurent
10 Olive Diefenbaker June 21, 1957 – April 22, 1963 John George Diefenbaker
11 Maryon Pearson April 22, 1963 – April 20, 1968 Lester B. Pearson
12 Margaret Trudeau March 4, 1971 – 1977* Pierre Trudeau
13 Maureen McTeer June 4, 1979 – March 2, 1980 Joe Clark
14 Geills Turner June 30, 1984 – September 17, 1984 John Turner
15 Mila Mulroney September 17, 1984 – June 25, 1993 Brian Mulroney
16 Aline Chretien Aline Chrétien November 4, 1993 – December 12, 2003 Jean Chrétien
17 Sheila Martin December 12, 2003 – February 6, 2006 Paul Martin
18 Laureen Harper Laureen Harper February 6, 2006 – Present Stephen Harper

WHLfan (talk) 23:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]