Canadian Prime Ministers on Film

This is an attempt to catalogue how many appearances Canadian Prime Ministers have made on film. I used two sources for this: Wikipedia to get the names of Prime Ministers and when they ran (Wikipedia isn’t always accurate but is generally good for factual stuff such as this) and the Internet Movie Database for screen appearances (again some inaccuracies may appear but this is probably the best possible source for such information). For TV series, appearances are only counted once. Of course it’s impossible to get data on all newscast appearances so later Prime Ministers likely have 100s of uncatalogued appearances; these are probably the easiest to find somewhere.

Actor/Actress means this is a rare case where a Prime Minister has played a role other than themselves, though the role may in some cases (e.g. Former Prime Minister) allude to the real person. Self means the film has new footage as the Prime Minister as themselves, usually but not always in a non-fictional role. Archive means the film only has footage of the Prime Minister obtained from other sources. For TV shows a Prime Minister may appear in both Self and Archive categories as long as the episodes are different.

This list is solely of the Prime Ministers themselves, not of people playing them. A separate list for such appearances will be covered in a subsequent blog. Personally I think seeing the actual leader on film is more interesting than a portrayal, no matter how good.

Gaps in the list of Prime Ministers mean I was not able to find concrete evidence of filmed appearances of the Prime Minister, though again obviously some appeared in news broadcasts. For purposes of this list, interim Prime Ministers are given equal weight as elected Prime Ministers.

Due to the nature of the post, this blog entry will be updated periodically.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Prime Minister #: 7th
Years: 1891-1911
Self: 1
Archive Footage: 4

Sir Robert Borden
Prime Minister #: 8th
Years: 1911-1920
Archive Footage: 3

William Lyon Mackenzie King
Prime Minister #: 10th
Years: 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 1935-1948
Self: 3
Archive Footage: 28

Richard Bedford Bennett
Prime Minister #: 11th
Years: 1930-1935
Archive Footage: 3

Louis St. Laurent
Prime Minister #: 12th
Years: 1948-1957
Archive Footage: 8

John Diefenbaker
Prime Minister #: 13th
Years: 1957-1963
Self: 3
Archive Footage: 6

Lester B. Pearson
Prime Minister #: 14th
Years: 1963-1968
Self: 3
Archive Footage: 8

Pierre Trudeau
Prime Minister #: 15th
Years: 1968-1979, 1980-1984
Actor: 1
Self: 14
Archive Footage: 19

Joe Clark
Prime Minister #: 16th
Years: 1979-1980
Self: 6
Archive Footage: 3

Brian Mulroney
Prime Minister #: 18th
Years: 1984-1993
Self: 5
Archive Footage: 10

Kim Campbell
Prime Minister #: 19th
Year: 1993
Actress: 2
Self: 4
Archive Footage: 1

Jean Chrétien
Prime Minister #: 20th
Years: 1993-2003
Self: 15
Archive Footage: 9

Paul Martin
Prime Minister #: 21st
Years: 2003-2006
Self: 6
Archive Footage: 5

Stephen Harper
Prime Minister #: 22nd
Years: 2006-Present
Self: 4
Archive Footage: 5