prime ministers + history

Lifeguard station in winter.

The other day Darren and I were in the car talking about our high school history classes. We’re from two different towns, Darren from Wallaceburg and I from Hockley Village, and so two different high schools. Darren doesn’t remember much from his high school history class except that it was a bit boring and seemingly irrelevant to a boy of fifteen. The focus of mine, primarily was the history of cars, which albeit more interesting, still doesn’t serve me as being useful. Oh, and I learnt about the whole Upper Canada/Lower Canada business, which has never come up in conversation since.

The discussion moved to what we thought would have been more useful to learn in high school history. Well for starters, the list of Canada’s Prime Ministers and one important thing each of them did, big or small. We also thought it would be good to touch on practical politics, the structure of our parliament, how government affects Canadians on a day-to-day basis, and how we can best utilize it. Perhaps history class should focus on more recent history.

This week’s list is supposed to be all the presidents that I can name, but I’ve Canadianized it. And now allow me to make a fool of myself…

all the {canadian} prime ministers i can name

  • Stephen Harper (let’s start of easy, shall we?)
  • Jean Chretien (ok, I cheated to look up the spelling)
  • Kim Campbell
  • Brian Mulroney
  • Sir John A MacDonald
  • Pierre Trudeau
  • Lester B Pearson

Now that I look at the full list of Canadian Prime Ministers I can see there are some big names that I missed…

That’s this week’s instalment of The List Love Book Club and now I’m going to crawl back under my rock. How many prime ministers/presidents can you name?

{winter landscape photograph by Jennifer Squires}

3 thoughts on “prime ministers + history

  1. Roderick Benns says:

    Hi Jennifer,

    Well, my Google Alerts for Canadian Prime Ministers picked up your recent blog entry.

    This is my kind of topic!

    You were wishing that maybe your Canadian history had concentrated a little more on the leaders and the big picture stuff. Yes! That’s what people find interesting. When we focus too much on little, regional, micro histories we lose sight of the big picture.

    Anyway, on my site here:
    http://www.roderickbenns.com/free-stuff.htm

    …you will find a one-pager that shows every Canadian Prime Minister and two accomplishments each — all 22 of them. We’re hoping to bring Canadian history to young people through a historical fiction lens to make it more exciting.

    Anyway, just wanted to share in case you were interested. I have enjoyed perusing your excellent work, showcased on your site.

    Take care!

    Roderick Benns

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