Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Canada) position of Government House Leader was formally recognized. In 1968, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau designated the Government House Leader as President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. Under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the roles of Government House Leader and President of the Privy Council were separated in 1989. Under Mulroney and his successors, the position of House Leader would often be held by someone who was named a Minister of State without any portfolio responsibilities specified. Since 2003, this Minister of State status has been obscured in all but the most official circumstances by the use of a "Leader
Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada such as the Ottawa Humane Society. Conversely, other prime ministers' spouses, including Geills Turner and Sheila Martin, were uncomfortable with the public aspects of their role and tried to minimize their time in the press spotlight. Many have also held an unofficial but influential role as a political or campaign advisor to their husbands: both Mila Mulroney and Laureen Harper were considered their husbands' "secret weapons", whose instinctive sense of campaign optics proved invaluable to their husbands' careers; Harper, for example, was credited as the brains behind a public appearance in which her husband, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appeared on