Deputy Prime Minister of Canada of service of Allan J. MacEachen. Before then, Trudeau had given the title of "Senior Minister" to a member of his cabinet. The last to occupy that position was Paul Hellyer. Joe Clark's government did not have a deputy prime minister. Similarly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not designate a deputy prime minister, meaning Canada's most recent deputy prime minister was Anne McLellan, who in 2006, was also the first deputy prime minister to lose her seat in the House of Commons. Harper gave special status in the line of authority to members of his cabinet: under an order-in-council issued
Prime Minister of Canada only in passing in the "Constitution Act, 1982", and the Letters Patent, 1947 issued by King George VI. The office and its functions are instead governed by constitutional conventions and modelled on the same office in the United Kingdom. The prime minister, along with the other ministers in cabinet, is appointed by the governor general on behalf of the monarch. However, by the conventions of responsible government, designed to maintain administrative stability, the governor general will call to form a government the individual most likely to receive the support, or confidence, of a majority of the directly elected members of