Kim Campbell

The Right Honourable Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, PC , LL.B (born March 10, 1947, Port Alberni, British Columbia) was the nineteenth Prime Minister of Canada from June 25 to November 4, 1993. She remains North America's only female head of a national government to date. She was also the second woman in history to sit at the table of the Group of Seven (now G8) leaders, the eight most industrialized countries in the world, after British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Legacy

Campbell took her political rise and fall with good grace. For several years she devoted herself with energy and imagination towards expanding her role and duties as the Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles and worked as a popular sessional lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. As Justice Minister, Campbell brought about a new rape law whose passage firmly entrenched that in cases involving sexual assault, "no means no." While Campbell had little time to usher in legislation during her six brief months as Prime Minister, she did implement radical changes to the structure of the Canadian government. Under her tenure, the patronage bloated federal cabinet's size was cut from over seventy-five cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries to just twenty-three and the number of cabinet committees was reduced from eleven to five. Jean Chrétien essentially kept governing with Campbell's structure for his ensuing decade of Liberal rule, though the use of patronage has increased with Prime Minister Paul Martin's appointment of a thirty-eight member federal cabinet in July, 2004.

Related Topics:
Consul General - Los Angeles - Harvard University - Jean Chrétien - Paul Martin

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While the Progressive Conservatives teetered on the brink of destruction after her leadership, they did regain party status and survived as a distinct and relatively popular political entity for another ten years after the 1993 election debacle. The party subsequently merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004.

Related Topics:
Canadian Alliance - Conservative Party of Canada

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Campbell remains one of the youngest women to have ever assumed the office of Prime Minister in any country, and one of the youngest to have left the office.

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