Historical rankings of prime ministers of Canada

Historical rankings of Canadian prime ministers are surveys conducted in order to construct rankings of the success of individuals who have served as Prime Minister of Canada. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians, economists and political scientists. The rankings focus on the achievements, leadership qualities, failures and faults in office.

East Block (left) and the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council (right) have housed the office of the prime minister since Canadian Confederation, the former from 1867-1977 and the latter since 1977.

Scholar survey results
Legend
Blue backgrounds indicate first quartile.
Green backgrounds indicate second quartile.
Orange backgrounds indicate third quartile.
Red backgrounds indicate fourth quartile.

Note: Click the "sort" icon at the head of each column to view the rankings for each survey in numerical order.

SequencePrime MinisterPolitical partyMaclean's 1997[1]Maclean's 2011[2]Maclean's 2016[3]Aggr.[4]Time in office (rank)
1Sir John A. MacdonaldConservative223032
2Alexander MackenzieLiberal1113131313
3Sir John Abbott ^Conservative1719202018
4Sir John Thompson ^Conservative1014161516
5Sir Mackenzie Bowell ^Conservative1921212219
6Sir Charles Tupper ^Conservative1618191823
7Sir Wilfrid LaurierLiberal312024
8Sir Robert BordenConservative, Unionist789088
9Arthur Meighen ^Conservative1416171717
10William Lyon Mackenzie KingLiberal131011
11R. B. BennettConservative1212141411
12Louis St. LaurentLiberal476069
13John George DiefenbakerProgressive Conservative1310121210
14Lester B. PearsonLiberal6450512
15Pierre Elliott TrudeauLiberal554043
16Joseph Clark ^Progressive Conservative1517181820
17John Napier Turner ^Liberal1820222122
18Brian MulroneyProgressive Conservative898097
19Kim Campbell ^Progressive Conservative2022232321
20Jean ChretienLiberal9*67075
21Paul Martin ^Liberal—15151615
22Stephen HarperConservative—11*11116
23Justin TrudeauLiberal——10*1014

Sequence listed by first term as Prime Minister.

* Ranking calculated before the prime minister had left office.

^ Served less than 2 years, 3 months, as Prime Minister, while all others served for more than 4 years, 11 months. There is a strong correlation between time served in office and the poll rankings: the bottom quartile of the aggregate poll rankings are all in the bottom quartile of time served in office. Similarly, the top four Prime Ministers in terms of aggregate rankings are in the top four of time spent in office.

William Lyon Mackenzie King (photo) is the highest rated prime Minister based on three aggregate results from Maclean's, and is also Canada's longest serving prime minister.

Other surveys
Lester B. Pearson

The Institute for Research on Public Policy undertook a survey to rank the prime ministers who had served in the 50 years preceding 2003.[5] They ranked those nine prime ministers as follows:

  1. Pearson
  2. Mulroney
  3. Trudeau
  4. St. Laurent
  5. Chrétien
  6. Diefenbaker
  7. Clark ^
  8. Turner ^
  9. Campbell ^

^ Served less than 10 months as Prime Minister, while all others served for more than 4 years, 11 months.

In October 2016, Maclean's again ranked the prime ministers, this time splitting them into two lists. The long-serving prime ministers were ranked as follows:

  1. King
  2. Laurier
  3. Macdonald
  4. Pierre Trudeau
  5. Pearson
  6. St. Laurent
  7. Chrétien
  8. Mulroney
  9. Borden
  10. Harper
  11. Diefenbaker
  12. Mackenzie
  13. Bennett

The short-term prime ministers were ranked as follows:

  1. Justin Trudeau
  2. Martin
  3. Thompson
  4. Meighen
  5. Clark
  6. Tupper
  7. Abbott
  8. Bowell
  9. Turner
  10. Campbell

See also

References
  1. Hillmer, Norman and Granatstein, J. L. "Historians rank the BEST AND WORST Canadian Prime Ministers" Archived 2001-07-19 at the Wayback Machine. Maclean's. April 21, 1997. Accessed July 9, 2012.
  2. Hillmer, Norman and Azzi, Stephen. "Canada's best prime ministers", Maclean's, June 10, 2011. Accessed July 9, 2012.
  3. Hillmer, Norman and Azzi, Stephen. "Ranking Canada’s best and worst prime ministers" Maclean's, October 7, 2016. Accessed June 22, 2017.
  4. Aggregate of all polls in the table using Copeland's method.
  5. MacDonald, L. Ian. "The Best Prime Minister of the Last 50 Years — Pearson, by a landslide," Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine Policy Options, June–July 2003. Accessed April 3, 2014.


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