Talk:Spouse of the prime minister of Canada

Untitled

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 now), or that person's wife (when the GG is a man).

However, the term "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)

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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)", as 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)

Adding images to list of spouses

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		Agnes Macdonald	July 1, 1867 – November 5, 1873 October 17, 1878 – June 6, 1891	Sir John A. Macdonald
2		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		Annie Thompson	December 5, 1892 – December 12, 1894	Sir John Sparrow David Thompson
5		Frances Tupper	May 1, 1896 – July 8, 1896	Sir Charles Tupper
6		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 Chrétien	November 4, 1993 – December 12, 2003	Jean Chrétien
17		Sheila Martin	December 12, 2003 – February 6, 2006	Paul Martin
18		Laureen Harper	February 6, 2006 – Present	Stephen Harper

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

Move discussion in progress

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)

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