Ranking Prime Ministers: Canada in a Commonwealth Context

Abstract

ABSTRACT The authors undertook an expert survey to evaluate Canada’s prime ministers, the most extensive such exercise ever conducted in a Commonwealth country outside of the United Kingdom. The results revealed the unspoken assumptions of the experts: effective prime ministers are those who are able to win and maintain the support of their party, the public, and parliament; who leave a substantive policy legacy; and who are able to convert promises into action. Communication skills were judged to be less important. Of the specific areas of evaluation, personal integrity had the least impact on the overall rankings. Responses were similar across gender and age cohorts, though the younger respondents were more sensitive to issues affecting Indigenous peoples. Many of the results align with those found in surveys carried out in other Commonwealth countries, specifically the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In Westminster democracies, experts place a high value on political longevity, but more so in Canada than elsewhere. In all these countries, providing stable and efficient government is not enough: to achieve a high rating, a prime minister must have accumulated a record of policy innovation. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the Commonwealth, Canadians value change-makers but believe that activism has to be lightened with caution, an important consideration in a vast country readily split up into its parts.