It hasn’t been a banner year so far for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. David Akin notes that it’s Harper’s birthday today and that he’s now our 9th longest-serving PM:
Today is Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 55th birthday. It is also is his 3,005th day in office. (The Library of Parliament counts his first day as Feb. 6, 2006, the day he and his first cabinet were sworn in.)
At 3,005 days in office, the country’s 22nd prime minister is its 9th longest-serving prime minister.
Here’s the top 14 as of today:
- William Lyon Mackenzie King: 7,824 days in office
- John A. Macdonald: 6,934 days
- Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 5,620 days
- Wilfrid Laurier: 5,565 days
- Jean Chrétien: 3,689 days
- Brian Mulroney: 3,202 days
- Robert Borden: 3,195 days
- Louis St. Laurent: 3,139 days
- Stephen Harper: 3,005 days
- John Diefenbaker: 2,130 days
- R.B. Bennett: 1,902 days
- Lester Pearson: 1,824 days
- Alexander Mackenzie: 1,796 days
- Paul Martin: 786 days
Not totally convinced this is newsworthy…
A) there have only been 22 Prime Ministers. And the stats of the guys below Harper are pretty dismal (Even Martin is a third of the way up on the list). Who cares that he’s finally past halfway?
B) It seems pretty clear that he passed Diefenbaker almost 1000 days ago. So why is something that happened almost 3 years ago news now? Wouldn’t it make more sense to celebrate when he jumps to 6th in less than a year?
Comment by Liam — May 2, 2014 @ 07:27
You’re right, it’s not particularly “news”, but I found it interesting seeing the actual service records of the PMs. I meant to say more in the introduction about what a bad year Harper had been having, which might be why Akin put together this little bit of fluff (Akin works for a relatively pro-Harper company … which is unusual in Canadian media). Over the longer term, I can see him edging out Chrétien for fifth on the list, but I doubt he’ll last longer than Laurier did.
I also didn’t realize Louis St. Laurent and Alexander Mackenzie had served as long as that. I had each of them pegged mentally as about half their respective terms.
Comment by Nicholas — May 2, 2014 @ 07:38
Now would be a good time for me to mention that I have no idea who Louis St. Laurent is. Everyone else on the list I recognize, but it’s kind of funny that the only one I’ve never heard of is in the top ten, ahead of the current PM no less.
I wanted to put that in my first comment, but I thought it was getting big enough.
Comment by Liam — May 2, 2014 @ 18:19
Louis fits in that mental blank spot between W.L. Mackenzie King and Diefenbaker. Canada was busy being relatively prosperous and un-newsworthy during most of his term in office, so it’s not surprising you don’t recognize him.
Comment by Nicholas — May 3, 2014 @ 08:56