Laurier Named Canada's Top PM

Sir Will narrowly beats out John A. and Mackenzie King, while Kim Campbell, Mackenzie Bowell, and John Turner round out the bottom.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the guy who kind of looks like Spock on our $5 bills, has been named the country's best prime minister in a second survey by Maclean's of leading political scientists and historians. Laurier, who spearheaded settlement in Western Canada, founded the navy and the foreign service, and perfected the art of compromise in a bilingual nation, unseated William Lyon Mackenzie King (third place), who was No. 1 in the first survey in 1997. Laurier also beat out Sir John A. Macdonald, who's treading water in second place. Other notables include Lester B. Pearson, who climbed from sixth to fourth, Jean Chrétien (sixth), who is nipping at Pierre Trudeau's (fifth) heels, and Stephen Harper, who placed a respectable 11th.