Although "Canada East" (the former Lower Canada, now Quebec) and "Canada West" (the former Upper Canada, now Ontario) were united as a single province with a single government, each administration was led by two men, one from each half of the province. Officially, one of them at any given time had the title of "Premier", while the other had the title of "Deputy". Despite this, however, the titular premier could not generally invoke unilateral authority over his deputy if he wanted to maintain his government's stability; in practice, both men had to agree on virtually any political course of action. As a result, this form of government proved to be fractious and difficult, leading to frequent changes in leadership — in just 26 years, the joint premiership changed hands eighteen times, with twenty different people holding the office over its history even though just eight general elections were held across that time.