Joint Premiers of The Province of Canada - Continuing Influence

Continuing Influence

The best-known premiership has arguably been the Macdonald-Cartier ministry, which governed the Province of Canada from 1857 to 1862 (except for four days in 1858 when power was briefly ceded to the Brown-Dorion government). It was during their ministry that the first organized moves toward Canadian Confederation took place, and John A. Macdonald himself became the first Prime Minister of Canada in 1867. Macdonald-Cartier has survived in Canada as a geographic and institutional name, which has been applied to high schools in Ottawa, Sudbury and Saint-Hubert, the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport and the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge linking Ottawa with Gatineau. "Macdonald-Cartier Freeway" was also the historical name of Highway 401.

The Lafontaine-Baldwin government has also lent its name to the annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium on Canadian social, cultural and political topics. No other joint premiership currently has any Canadian institutions or geographic features named for it per se, although individual people who held the position may be so honoured as individuals.

The continuing, although informal, government position of the Quebec lieutenant, who is designated as the Prime Minister's primary advisor and spokesman on issues related to Quebec, may be viewed as an indirect descendant of the joint premiership, although the position is far from equivalent in terms of the actual power it wields within a government.