Portal:Canadian politics/Selected biography
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Selected article list
Portal:Canadian politics/Selected biography/1 John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC (September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) led Canada as its 13th Prime Minister, serving from June 21, 1957 to April 22, 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative (PC, or Tory) party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of the seats in the Canadian House of Commons.
Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the Northwest Territories which would shortly thereafter become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province, and was interested in politics from a young age. After brief service in World War I, he became a lawyer. Diefenbaker contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940. In the House of Commons, he was repeatedly a candidate for the Tory leadership. He was finally successful in 1956, and led the party for eleven years. In 1957, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years and a year later called a snap election and led it to one of its greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first woman minister to his Cabinet and the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained the passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights (which he introduced on July 1, 1960) and granted the vote to members of the First Nations and Inuit peoples.
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Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, PC, CC, CH, QC, MSRC (18 October 1919 – 28 September 2000), usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from 20 April 1968 to 4 June 1979, and again from 3 March 1980 to 30 June 1984.
Pierre Trudeau was a charismatic figure who, from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. "Reason before passion" was his personal motto. Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect and they salute his political acumen in preserving national unity and establishing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada's constitution. His detractors accuse him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly favouring the authority of the federal government in relation to the provinces, but despite the controversy, both Trudeau's defenders and detractors agree he left a mark on the Canadian politics of his time.
Trudeau led Canada through a difficult period in Canadian history, and was often the centre of attention and controversy. Known for his flamboyance, he dated celebrities, was accused of using an obscenity during debate in the House of Commons, and once did a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II.
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Agnes Campbell Macphail (March 24, 1890 – February 13, 1954) was the first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons, and one of the first two women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Active throughout her life in progressive Canadian politics, Macphail worked for two separate parties and promoted her ideas through column-writing, activist organizing, and legislation.
As a radical member of the Progressive Party, Macphail joined the socialist Ginger Group, faction of the Progressive Party that later led to the formation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). She became the first president of the Ontario CCF in 1932. However, she left the CCF in 1934 when the United Farmers of Ontario pulled out due to fears of Communist influence in the Ontario CCF. While Macphail was no longer formally a CCF member, she remained close to the CCF MPs and often participated in caucus meetings. The CCF did not run candidates against Macphail in her three subsequent federal campaigns. Out of office, she wrote agricultural columns for the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto. Following a family tragedy in her home town, Macphail moved to the Toronto suburb of East York, Ontario and rejoined the Ontario CCF in 1942 becoming its farm organizer.
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Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC (Can), (11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada and the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation. Macdonald's tenure in office spanned 18 years, making him the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six majority governments.
He was the major proponent of a national railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885, linking Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. He won praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, numerous Aboriginal nations, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views. Queen Victoria knighted John A. Macdonald for playing an integral role in bringing about Confederation. His appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George was announced at the birth of the Dominion, 1 July 1867. An election was held in August which put Macdonald and his Conservative party into power.
Macdonald's vision as prime minister was to enlarge the country and unify it. Accordingly, under his rule Canada bought Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company for £300,000 (about $11,500,000 in modern Canadian dollars). This became the Northwest Territories. In 1870 Parliament passed the Manitoba Act, creating the province of Manitoba out of a portion of the Northwest Territories in response to the Red River Rebellion led by Louis Riel.
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Michaëlle Jean CC CMM COM CD FRCPSC(hon) (French pronunciation: [mika.ɛl ʒɑ̃]; born 6 September 1957) is a Canadian journalist and stateswoman. She served as the Governor General of Canada, the 27th since that country's confederation.
Jean is a refugee from Haiti—coming to Canada in 1968—and was raised in the town of Thetford Mines, Quebec. After receiving a number of university degrees, Jean worked as a journalist and broadcaster for Radio-Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), as well as undertaking charity work, mostly in the field of assisting victims of domestic violence. She was in 2005 appointed as governor general by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin, to replace Adrienne Clarkson as vicereine. At the time, comments of hers recorded in some of the film works by her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, were construed as supporting Quebec sovereignty and her holding of dual citizenship caused doubt about her loyalties. But Jean denied separatist leanings, renounced her citizenship of France, and eventually became a respected vicereine.
As governor general, Jean is entitled to be styled Her Excellency while in office, and The Right Honourable for the duration of her viceregal tenure and life beyond; given current practice, she will be sworn in to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada when her term as the Queen's representative ends in 2010.
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Daniel E. "Danny" Williams, QC, MHA (born August 4, 1949) was the ninth Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, having served from November 6, 2003 to December 3, 2010. Williams was born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Before entering politics Williams was a highly successful lawyer and businessman.
After becoming Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001, he was elected to the House of Assembly in a by-election for the riding of Humber West in Corner Brook.
Williams' premiership has been considered controversial outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. Events such as ordering all Canadian flags to be removed from provincial government buildings over offshore oil revenues, and launching the Anything But Conservative in the 2008 election, have garnered national attention. While Williams remains a controversial politician outside Newfoundland and Labrador he was continuously ranked one of the most popular premiers in Canada, with approval ratings in the province consistently in the high seventies and eighties.
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Kathleen Mary Margaret "Kathy" Dunderdale MHA (née Warren; born February 1952) is a Canadian politician and the tenth and current Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, having served in this capacity since December 3, 2010. Dunderdale was born and raised in Burin; before entering politics she worked in the fields of community development, communications, fisheries and social work. Her first foray into politics was as a member of the Burin town council, where she served as deputy mayor. She was also a Progressive Conservative Party (PC) candidate in the 1993 general election and served as President of the PC Party.
In the 2003 general election, Dunderdale was elected as Member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for Virginia Waters. She served in the cabinets of Danny Williams—at various times holding the portfolios of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development and Natural Resources—where she developed a reputation as one of the most high-profile members of Williams' cabinets. Dunderdale became premier upon the resignation of Williams and after becoming the PC leader she led the party to victory in the October 2011 election. Dunderdale is the first female premier in the province's history and the sixth woman to serve as a premier in the history of Canada.
Portal:Canadian politics/Selected biography/8
John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011) was a Canadian social democratic politician and the Leader of the Official Opposition. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and previously sat on Toronto City Council, serving at times during that period as acting mayor and deputy mayor of Toronto. He was the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Toronto—Danforth from 2004 until his death.
In the 2011 election, Layton led the NDP to the most successful result in the party's history winning 103 seats, enough to form Canada's Official Opposition. Federal support for Layton and the NDP in the election was unprecedented, especially in the province of Quebec where the party won 59 out of 75 seats. On May 18, 2011, Layton was sworn in as Leader of the Opposition in the 41st Canadian Parliament. Layton died on August 22, 2011, aged 61, after suffering from an undisclosed type of cancer. He was married to fellow MP Olivia Chow.
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