The Prime Minister of Canada (French: Premier ministre du Canada) is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution. Not outlined in any constitutional document, the office exists only as per long-established convention originating in Canada's former colonial power, the United Kingdom, which stipulates that the monarch's representative, the governor general, must select as prime minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons; this individual is typically the leader of the political party that holds the largest number of seats in that chamber.
The current, and 22nd, Prime Minister of Canada is the Conservative Party's Stephen Harper, who was appointed on February 6, 2006, by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, following the general election that took place that year. As with all other Canadian prime ministers, Harper is styled as The Right Honourable (French: Le Très Honorable), a privilege maintained for life.
Read more about Prime Minister Of Canada: Origin of The Office, Qualifications and Selection, Mandate, Role and Authority, Privileges, Style of Address, Activities Post-commission
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“One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“I came there as prime steak and now I feel like low-grade hamburger.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it’s power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of their virtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least several gentlemen or “squires,” there is but one to a seigniory.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)