This series is perhaps the most significant series of the whole Allan J. MacEachen fonds, based on historical events, MacEachen's political influence and the series' content, date range and extent. He held the office of President of the Privy Council three times - Acting (1968), and then in full charge in 1970-1974 and 1976-1979. The records in this series nominally relate to these latter two appointments.
The material here documents MacEachen's influence and prominent role in a succession of Liberal Governments in the 1970s. As President of the Privy Council, he was charged with delivering the Government's program. This meant that the preparation of legislation and its passage through the House became his main responsibility and concern. The office itself was not a power ministry, or a ministry proper in any sense of the term. However, under MacEachen, given his political skills and the government's needs for an effective manager of the House to deliver reform and change, the Presidency became an office of significant influence. Given that he was co-terminously Liberal Party House Leader and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, MacEachen, as President of the Privy Council became a dominant force in Parliament, recognized as such by being named the first official Deputy Prime Minister in Canada. MacEachen's Office did not separate out his papers into blocs reflecting the various offices he held and as a result, records relating to his roles as House Leader, Government Leader and Deputy PM are all suffused within this massive series.
There are two sub-series in this series, Sub-Series1 - Privy Council Coded Files (In "Ministry of Finance" File Jackets) and Sub-Series 2 - Coded Files. Sub-series 1 and Sub-series 2 seem to be parallel series, covering the same decade, reflecting the same offices, utilizing, more or less, the same file control structure with similar coding. As noted earlier, sub-series 1 is in "Ministry of Finance" file jackets, while sub-series 2 is in "President of the Privy Council" file jackets - and that seems to be the only criterion separating the two file runs, because content and structure are pretty much the same. However, sub-series 1 is far, far shorter than sub-series 2. In sub-series 2 the volume runs under each file code are often very extensive.
