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Watching all the eulogies to Margaret Thatcher, a leader of unusual strength, might lead some to recall the one female prime minister Canada had – the one who lasted about five minutes. The United States has its first black president, an eloquent and impressive figure, and Hillary Clinton is on deck to be the first woman.

At the coronation of Justin Trudeau as Liberal Party Leader on Sunday, they showed historic video clips of prime ministers going back to Wilfrid Laurier. It served, speaking of potent leaders, as a reminder of something that is underappreciated in this country: the number of strong prime ministers – Liberals and Conservatives – that Canada has been fortunate enough to have.

Our history has served up some who have fizzled, but on balance our voters have chosen well. We've had prime ministers who have fit the needs of testing times, men who have been vital to the nation-building process.

This is especially true of the first half of our history, the decades dominated by John A. Macdonald, Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King. Try finding three more capable leaders than these. Macdonald – the "nation maker," in Richard Gwyn's phrase – gave us much of our Constitution and a national policy to bind the border. Without his state paternalism and remarkable political skills, Canada might not have survived childhood.

After the nation maker came the consolidator. We needed a balancing force to the preponderant British presence. Who better to fill the role than Quebec's Laurier? His judiciousness, sophistication and conciliatory approach made the middle way the Canadian way.

Robert Borden is long forgotten but shouldn't be. To elevate the country from colonial status, Canada had to show its mettle on the battlefields. Borden was a tough war leader who capitalized on the valour of our fighting men in the First World War to secure greater independence from the empire.

The dour King is viewed by many historians as our best prime minister. His superior managerial skills got the country through the Second World War in one piece, laid the foundations for our welfare state and astutely turned our economic compass from the receding superpower that was Britain to the new giant that was America.

The postwar leaders have had less illustrious records but in many respects have contributed to the needs of the nation. After Louis St. Laurent's extension of King's ways and John Diefenbaker's aberrant captaincy, Lester B. Pearson's stewardship, disorderly but fruitful, brought the country new measures of maturity: the flag, co-operative federalism, medicare, a pension plan and other steps toward social equality.

But there was something lacking. We were still a cultural backwater. We needed a cultural liberator – and who should arrive but the contrarian intellectual Pierre Trudeau. He was a confrontational leader who stared down terrorists, separatists and imperialists and also alienated the West, Washington and nationalist Quebec. But his strength of character rubbed off on this country. He brought us style, intellectual rigour, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He captured, as Michael Bliss put it, the spirit of the new age.

Like Trudeau, Brian Mulroney alienated many. But in an era of globalization, his contribution was significant: He ended our shortsighted economic nationalism.

There are so many Canadian shadings that need to be represented at one time or another in our leadership. Jean Chrétien's raw-boned, blue-collar pragmatism was Canadian through and through. He was Laurentian rock. We'd never get a swollen head under this guy.

But something had long been missing from the top rung: an ardent voice for the conservative right and the West, which was seeing a shift in power and population. Who better to fill that gap than Stephen Harper, the anti-Trudeau whose strength and cunning few can doubt.

One can disagree with their philosophies. For every one of the aforementioned leaders, one can find a long list of failings. But on balance they are a formidable lot. When we think of strong leaders elsewhere, we shouldn't forget who we have had here.

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