The Right Honorable Kim Campbell
Former Prime Minister of Canada
Prime Minister Kim Campbell began her national political career in 1986 when she was elected to the British Columbia legislature. Elected to the House of Commons in 1988, she served as Canada’s Prime Minster from June 25 to November 4 of 1993 and has since undertaken a busy schedule of writing, teaching and lecturing.
Campbell delivered an address, “Women in Politics,” on Tuesday, September 25, 2001.
The country’s first woman Prime Minister, Kim Campbell also was the country’s first female Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Its first female Minister of National Defense, and the first woman to be elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. She remains one of only two women to have participated in a G-7 Summit, and was the first woman to serve as Defense Minister of a NATO country. Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, she serves on a number of international think tanks, including the Gorbachev Foundation of North America and the International Council of the Asia Society.
Prime Minster Campbell is currently teaching at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she is a Visiting Professor of Practice for the Center of Public Leadership. She speaks widely on women and leadership, international conflict resolution, democratization and Canadian-American relations. She holds degrees in political science and law from the University of British Columbia, and has done graduate work at the London School of Economics.