Kim Campbell

Biography

Avril Phaedra Douglas Campbell was born on 10 March 1947 in Port Alberni, British Columbia, and grew up mainly in Vancouver. She adopted the name Kim as a child. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of British Columbia in 1969 and pursued doctoral studies at the London School of Economics before returning to Vancouver to teach political science. She later completed a law degree at UBC in 1983 and practised law in Vancouver.

Campbell entered public life as a trustee of the Vancouver School Board from 1980 to 1984, serving as its chair. She ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the British Columbia Social Credit Party in 1986 but was elected that year to the provincial legislature for Vancouver-Point Grey.

She moved to federal politics in 1988, winning Vancouver Centre for the Progressive Conservatives. Brian Mulroney appointed her minister of state for Indian affairs and northern development in 1989 and minister of justice and attorney general in 1990, the first woman in that role. As justice minister she introduced new gun control legislation and a revised rape shield law setting out the meaning of consent in sexual assault cases. In January 1993 she became the first woman to serve as minister of national defence.

After Mulroney announced his retirement, Campbell won the Progressive Conservative leadership in June 1993, defeating Jean Charest. She was sworn in on 25 June 1993 as the 19th prime minister and the first woman to hold the office. She reduced the size of the cabinet and reorganized the structure of federal departments, a change that later governments largely kept.

The government's term was nearly over, and Campbell called an election for 25 October 1993. The Progressive Conservatives, facing voter discontent and new competition from the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois, won only two seats, and Campbell lost Vancouver Centre. She left office on 4 November 1993 and resigned as party leader in December.

In later years Campbell taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, served as Canadian consul general in Los Angeles from 1996 to 2000, chaired the Council of Women World Leaders and led the Club of Madrid, an association of former heads of government. She published a memoir in 1996, was founding principal of the Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta, and in 2016 chaired an advisory board on appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada.