Canadian Prime Ministers
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50 free Canadian Prime Ministers trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Canada's prime ministers are often pictured as a cautious, well-mannered lot. The record says otherwise. The office has been held by a leader who talked to the dead, one who clowned behind the monarch's back, and one whose name ended up on horse-drawn cars during the Depression. This quiz covers the people who have run the country since Confederation: who came first, who lasted longest, who was gone in weeks, and which decisions still shape Canadian life. Expect questions on wartime leadership, constitutional fights, famous dealings with Washington and London, official homes and the customs of the job itself. It is pitched for anyone who paid attention in Canadian history class, follows politics, or simply enjoys a good story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you finish knowing more than when you started.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Pierre Trudeau photographed doing behind Queen Elizabeth II's back at Buckingham Palace in 1977?
A pirouette
A pirouette was the cheeky spin Trudeau performed as leaders gathered in London for a G7 summit. Photographer Doug Ball's shot ran on front pages across Canada.
Q 02Which former justice minister from British Columbia became Canada's first female prime minister in 1993?
Kim Campbell
Kim Campbell lasted only months in the job. In that autumn's election her Progressive Conservatives fell from a majority to two seats, and she lost her own.
Q 03Which prime minister, Canada's leader throughout World War II, secretly used mediums to contact his dead mother?
Mackenzie King
Mackenzie King also claimed to have reached Leonardo da Vinci and several of his dead dogs. The séances stayed secret until after his death in 1950.
Q 04Which Kingston lawyer, the leading Father of Confederation, became Canada's first prime minister in 1867?
John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald served 19 years in all, a total only one later prime minister has beaten, and he died in office in 1891.
Q 05Margaret Trudeau, wife of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, made headlines in 1977 by partying with which rock band?
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones were playing a surprise show at Toronto's El Mocambo club, billed as The Cockroaches, when she joined them. The Trudeaus separated that same year.
Q 06Which Canadian diplomat won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his Suez Crisis plan and later became prime minister?
Lester B. Pearson
Lester B. Pearson proposed the United Nations Emergency Force that calmed the crisis. He became prime minister six years later and oversaw the adoption of the Maple Leaf flag.
Q 07Which US president sang When Irish Eyes Are Smiling on stage with Brian Mulroney at their Shamrock Summit?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan joined Mulroney and both their wives for the song at a televised gala in Quebec City, a public show of how well the two leaders got along.
Q 08Which civil rights pioneer replaced Canada's first prime minister on the front of the $10 bill in 2018?
Viola Desmond
Viola Desmond, a Black businesswoman from Nova Scotia, was picked from more than 25,000 public nominations. She was the first Canadian-born woman to appear alone on a banknote.
Q 09Which Cold War leader joined Jimmy Carter as an honorary pallbearer at Pierre Trudeau's state funeral in 2000?
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro also declared three days of national mourning in Cuba for his friend. Singer and poet Leonard Cohen was another of the honorary pallbearers.
Q 10Which former Bank of England governor became Canada's prime minister in 2025 without ever holding elected office?
Mark Carney
Mark Carney, born in Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, had earlier run the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013. He was the first non-British head of the older bank.
Q 11Which Liberal leader became Canada's first French Canadian prime minister in 1896 and governed for 15 unbroken years?
Wilfrid Laurier
Wilfrid Laurier's run is still the longest uninterrupted term of any Canadian prime minister. He sat in the Commons for nearly 45 years, a record.
Q 12Which dictator did Canada's longest-serving prime minister travel to meet in 1937, hoping to steer him toward peace?
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler struck his Canadian visitor as a Wagnerian hero in whom good would win out. The prime minister went home believing the Nazi leader would bring his people a peaceful future.
Q 13Canadians too poor for gasoline in the 1930s hitched horses to their cars and named them after which prime minister?
Q 21Which Albertan, sworn in a day before his 40th birthday, became the youngest prime minister in Canadian history?
Joe Clark
Joe Clark's government fell within months when Parliament voted down its first budget, which included a new tax on gasoline. A newspaper had greeted his rise with the headline Joe Who?
Q 22Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in Parliament in 2008 to apologize to Indigenous peoples for which historic wrong?
Residential schools
Residential schools separated Indigenous children from their families for more than a century. Indigenous leaders were allowed onto the floor of the Commons to answer Harper in person.
Q 23Which sport is the subject of A Great Game, the history book Stephen Harper published in 2013 while prime minister?
R. B. Bennett
R. B. Bennett governed from 1930 to 1935 and took the blame for the hard times. An engineless car pulled by a horse became known as a Bennett buggy.
Q 14Which prime minister from Saskatchewan passed the Canadian Bill of Rights and gave First Nations people the vote?
John Diefenbaker
John Diefenbaker was born in Ontario and moved west with his family as a boy. In 1962 his government also ended racial discrimination in immigration policy.
Q 15Which emergency law did Pierre Trudeau invoke during the October Crisis of 1970, allowing arrests without trial?
The War Measures Act
The War Measures Act had never before been used in peacetime. Trudeau invoked it after Quebec separatists kidnapped a British diplomat and a provincial cabinet minister.
Q 16Which document did Pierre Trudeau add to Canada's constitution when it was brought home from Britain in 1982?
Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms came with a compromise. Trudeau won over nine premiers by letting legislatures override some rights through a notwithstanding clause.
Q 17Which Beatle met Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for 50 minutes in 1969 while on a tour for world peace?
John Lennon
John Lennon arrived with his wife Yoko Ono, and Trudeau became the first world leader to receive the couple. Lennon left the meeting full of praise for him.
Q 18Which profession did Justin Trudeau practise in Vancouver before returning east and entering federal politics?
Teacher
A teacher of French and math at a private academy, Trudeau also worked as a substitute at public high schools in the city.
Q 19Which US-led war did Prime Minister Jean Chrétien refuse to join because it lacked United Nations approval?
The Iraq War
The Iraq War began two days after Chrétien announced in Parliament that Canada would stay out. He gave Washington no advance warning, which soured his relations with the White House.
Q 20Which Ottawa address became the official residence of Canada's prime minister in 1951?
24 Sussex Drive
24 Sussex Drive needed so much repair by 2015 that Justin Trudeau, who had lived there as a boy, moved his family into Rideau Cottage instead.
Hockey
Hockey in early twentieth-century Toronto fills the book. Harper, a Maple Leafs fan since childhood, traced how the professional game took root in the city.
Q 24Canada's first prime minister was born in 1815 in which Scottish city, before his family emigrated when he was five?
Glasgow
Glasgow was home only until 1820, when his father's failed business ventures pushed the family to Upper Canada, where relatives had already settled.
Q 25Which Métis leader's hanging in 1885, which Canada's first prime minister refused to stop, outraged French Canadians?
Louis Riel
Louis Riel was convicted of treason after the North-West Rebellion. The refusal to reprieve him drove many Quebec voters away from the Conservatives and toward the Liberals.
Q 26Justin Trudeau was born on which holiday in 1971, while his father Pierre was serving as prime minister?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day is also the birthday of his brother Alexandre, born exactly two years later. Justin was only the second child ever born to a sitting Canadian prime minister.
Q 27Which official, whose Ottawa home is Rideau Hall, formally appoints the prime minister of Canada?
The Governor General
The Governor General acts on behalf of the monarch, and by convention picks whoever is most likely to hold the confidence of elected MPs. No constitutional document sets out the prime minister's job.
Q 28At which royal home did Prime Minister John Thompson die in 1894, just after joining Queen Victoria's Privy Council?
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle was where the 49-year-old suffered a fatal heart attack. Victoria staged an elaborate funeral, and a Royal Navy cruiser painted black carried his body home to Halifax.
Q 29Brian Mulroney used a little-known constitutional clause to add eight senators and force through which tax?
The Goods and Services Tax
The Goods and Services Tax took effect on January 1, 1991, replacing a 13.5 percent tax on manufacturers that shoppers had never seen on a receipt.
Q 30Which prime minister led Canada through the First World War and brought in conscription in 1917?
Robert Borden
Robert Borden had promised there would be no compulsory service, then reversed himself as volunteers dried up. His wartime government also gave women the vote in federal elections.