Talk:Spouses of the Prime Ministers of Canada

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Political parties and politicians in Canada

This article is problematic, IMO. The prime minister's wife is not generally referred to as "the first lady of Canada."

In fact, I believe that it is inaccurate. Canada's Head of State is the Governor General. The "first lady" would thus logically be that person (when the GG is a woman, as now), or that person's wife (when the GG is a man).

However, the term "first lady" is really an American idea. I remember when Mila Mulrooney was criticised for acting as though she was "first lady" when Brian Mulrooney was prime minister.

I think that the title of the article should be changed. How about "Spouse of the Canadian prime minister"? Sunray 00:48, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)

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I agree that it's problematic and should be changed. However, SD6-Agent, who created this page, also created pages for every prime ministerial spouse, all of which link back here (and almost always including some equally dubious bunk about "formally known as Lady (Husband's Surname)", as if that were any more historically supportable), so fixing it will involve a lot of work. In the meantime, I added the contextual bit about how "first lady" is a "recent and very unofficial designation", which hopefully should suffice until you or I or someone else actually has the time to do all the fixin'. Bearcat 09:23, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I take your point. Sunray 11:08, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)
Almost finished fixing that whole mess -- I redirected it to Spouses of the Prime Ministers of Canada, along with editing most First Lady references out of the biographies and redirecting the biographies, where appropriate (ie. not for Maureen McTeer) to the names that are most likely to be searched for (ie. married surnames, middle names in a couple of cases where the spouse was known by that name more than by her given first name.) Yowza. Bearcat 17:27, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Nice work! It was easy to move in and add a reference to the Canadian head of state, and then do some tidying up (copy edit). I also took out a reference to "first couple" that remained in the piece on Margaret Trudeau. Sunray 20:36, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)
Thanks. Nice to "meet" you, by the way! Bearcat 21:47, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If I was the original creator of this page (which I am) why isn't this indicated in the page history [1]?SD6-Agent 6 July 2005 04:53 (UTC)

Ain't got a clue. You are, however, on the history at the redirect First Lady of Canada. Bearcat 07:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)