Talk:List of female first ministers in Canada

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Duration?[edit]

Alsion Redford appears as being Premier of Alberta for 1 day on the chart. That looks pretty bad when you realize that she was only sworn in yesterday. Wouldn't it be best to somehow indicate which premiers are current? CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 12:21, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean by, perhaps, listing in the lead section which ones are currently serving in the role, and saying "incumbent" beside the duration? 117Avenue (talk) 22:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt it's necessary in the lede, but, say, colour coding (for example) for the incumbent would be a good idea, I think. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 09:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Due to WP:COLOUR, we are encouraged not to use colour to convey information, I think the incumbent in each leader's row is sufficient. 117Avenue (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I partially disagree with you, 117Avenue. Yes, we shouldn't use colour as a way to convey information, but shading the rows of incumbents is just a way to visually pick them out of a list. People reading a colourless version of the page wouldn't be losing anything important. Compare to a page like List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by time in office. That said, shading is probably not necessary in such a short list, especially given that by default the incumbents are all at the bottom. —Arctic Gnome (talkcontribs) 22:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Asterisks[edit]

We should acknowledge Hilda Watson somehow: she led the Yukon PCs to victory in '78 -- although she didn't get to be premier of the Yukon, because she lost her own riding. DS (talk) 13:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hagiography[edit]

Under Leadership History, all this list seems to do is fawn over the fact that these women are first, second, third, etc. which is really not much of a feat given the age of the country. The fact that so many of the first ministers on this list botched their mandates deserves equal mention, or at the very least, a mention of the circumstances of the end of their terms, not just the fact they got elected and they happen to be a certain gender. That would be a much more balanced presentation. Otherwise, the term "history" needs to be changed. For example

  • Kim Campbell may have been the first Prime Minister, but she also never actually sat in Parliament before she left office
  • Alison Redford was the first female Premier of Alberta, but was forced to resign after a caucus revolt, making her the shortest serving Alberta premier of all those who had an elected mandate
  • Pauline Marois served only a single term as first female premier of Quebec, after calling an election in a bid to seek a majority - in what pundits now call a major blunder (one of many, apparently, as her party is in worse shape than it has ever been).68.144.172.8 (talk) 04:43, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Forced to resign" is POV, and not encyclopedic. 117Avenue (talk) 05:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Inexplicable formatting[edit]

117Avenue, I see you don't mind being wrong, if it means a better article is written. I think you might consider this. You reverted an edit citing "inexplicable formatting". You're not suggesting that you prefer inexplicable formatting, are you?

We have the current version left aligned with wrapping verses the former version right aligned without wrapping. Which of these is the inexplicable one?

With wrapping we see some dates on a single line, others on two and the rest of them on three. Left alignment put the year (arguably the most significant part of the date) in a different position for different cells. With all respect, this looks a bit of mess to me. Without wrapping we have all dates on a single line. When we add right alignment to this all the years in the column align together. This seems much neater and easier to comprehend to me (I'd actually prefer three-letter abbreviations for months so as to align days and months too).

So, I've given a shot at explaining the formatting with right alignment and without wrapping. I hope it doesn't seem so inexplicable any more. However, a preference for the opposite (left alignment with wrapping) does seem a bit inexplicable to me. Jimp 06:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I didn't really explain myself that well. Usually what I mean by inexplicable formatting is when one entry to a list is bold or italics, and the reader isn't given an explanation why that entry is special. I do not like that. But that isn't really the case with your revision. I saw your change to one column as extraneous formatting. Everything in the table is left aligned, why align one column to the right? I also didn't provide an explanation for the addition of the wrapping text. Sure it looks nice to have all the dates formatted the same, but I think that should only apply to small, simple, tables. This table has a lot of information, that is, the rows are tall due to the info in the last column. I think in order to best fit the table onto any sized browser, we should be looking at ways to make it more efficiently thinner, so that side scrolling isn't required on smaller browsers. I didn't realize abbreviated months was an option, perhaps that would be sufficiently thin? 117Avenue (talk) 22:52, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Every jurisdiction... except for[edit]

Given that Canada only has ten provinces(and, yes, 3 territories) is the sentence: "Today, every Canadian jurisdiction has had at least one female premier except for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan." really appropriate? 40% - that's almost like saying every province except the ones that haven't... Jethro 82 (talk) 15:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]