Kim Campbell
Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell is a Canadian politician who was the 19th prime minister of Canada from June to November 1993. Campbell is the first and only female prime minister of Canada. Prior to becoming the final Progressive Conservative prime minister, she was also the first woman to serve as minister of justice in Canadian history and the first woman to become minister of defence in a NATO member state.
Campbell was first elected to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly as a member of the British Columbia Social Credit Party in 1986 before being elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a PC in 1988. Under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, she occupied numerous cabinet positions including minister of justice and attorney general, minister of veterans affairs and minister of national defence from 1990 to 1993. Campbell became the new prime minister in June 1993 after Mulroney resigned in the wake of declining popularity. In the 1993 Canadian federal election in October of that year, the Progressive Conservatives were decimated, losing all but two seats from a previous majority, with Campbell losing her own. Her 132-day premiership is the third-shortest in Canadian history.
Campbell was also the first baby boomer to hold the office, as well as the only prime minister born in British Columbia. She was the chairperson for the Canadian Supreme Court advisory board.
Early life
Campbell was born in Port Alberni, British Columbia, the daughter of Phyllis "Lissa" Margaret and George Thomas Campbell, a barrister who had served with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada in Italy. Her father was born in Montreal, to Scottish parents from Glasgow.While she was in her preteens, Campbell and her family moved to Vancouver. Campbell was one of five co-hosts and reporters on the CBC children's program Junior Television Club, which aired in May and June 1957.
Her mother left when Campbell was 12, leaving Kim and her sister Alix to be raised by their father. As a teenager, Campbell nicknamed herself Kim. In Vancouver, Campbell attended Prince of Wales Secondary School and was a top student. She became the school's first female student president, and graduated in 1964.
University and early career
Campbell earned an honours bachelor's degree in political science from the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1969. She was active in the student government and served as the school's first female president of the freshman class. She then completed a year of graduate study at that school, to qualify for doctoral-level studies. Campbell entered the London School of Economics in 1970 to study towards her doctorate in Soviet government and spent three months touring the Soviet Union from April to June 1972. She had spent several years studying the Russian language and claimed she was nearly fluent, although when asked to say a few words of welcome by a reporter to Boris Yeltsin during his visit to Canada in 1993, she could not and could only say "Hello Mr. Yeltsin". Campbell ultimately left her doctoral studies, returning to live in Vancouver after marrying Nathan Divinsky, her longtime partner, in 1972. She earned an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia in 1983. She was called to the British Columbia Bar in 1984, and practised law in Vancouver until 1986.Family and early political career
During her marriage to Divinsky, Campbell lectured part-time in political science at the University of British Columbia and at Vancouver Community College. While still attending law school, she entered politics as a trustee on the Vancouver School Board, becoming, in 1983, the chair of that board and serving in 1984 as its vice-chair. She once claimed to have told the board to "back off", although others alleged that she said "fuck off". In total, she was a trustee there from 1980 to 1984. Campbell and Divinsky were divorced in 1983, and Campbell married Howard Eddy in 1986, a marriage that lasted until shortly before she became prime minister. Campbell is the second prime minister of Canada to have been divorced, after Pierre Trudeau.She briefly dated Gregory Lekhtman, the inventor of Exerlopers, during her term as prime minister, but the relationship was relatively private and she did not involve him in the 1993 election campaign.
She is currently married to Hershey Felder, an actor, playwright, composer, and concert pianist. As of 2022, she lived outside Florence, Italy.
Provincial politics
Failed bid for the legislature
In the 1983 British Columbia provincial election, Campbell and future Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen contested the dual-member electoral district of Vancouver Centre as British Columbia Social Credit Party candidates. They lost badly, each receiving less than about 12,500 votes against the close to 19,000 votes of each of the NDP incumbents, former NDP minister Gary Lauk and future speaker Emery Barnes.In 1985, she joined the office of Premier Bill Bennett as an executive assistant and policy adviser.
Audacious bid for leadership
In the summer of 1986, Campbell contested the leadership of the Social Credit party. Despite campaigning on a shoe-string budget, her substantive, audacious presence and strong podium speech performance at the Whistler leadership convention earned her notice among the political class and positive reviews in the press. The speech foreshadowed her unusually frank perspective about political leaders, a traits later noted to her detriment while prime minister.Deeming she as a leadership contestant "did everything wrong", veteran journalist for the Victoria Times Colonist Jim Hume called Campbell "the star of the show" and her convention speech the "jewel of the convention". She went extra length to contrast herself against the populist frontrunner Bill Vander Zalm. and was particularly remember for her prophetic zinger at the eventual winner and future Premier,
Campbell placed last in a field of twelve on the first ballot with just 14 votes out of 1,294 cast. She threw her support behind Vander Zalm's chief opponent Grace McCarthy.
Member of the Legislative Assembly
In the 1986 election, Campbell contested neighboring Vancouver-Point Grey, a much more affluent electoral district that has traditionally been receptive to centre-right candidates. She took the place of retiring minister Garde Gardom and was on the ballot with Pat McGreer, another veteran minister and a former Liberal leader. At the end of a surprisingly competitive campaign, Campbell topped the poll with close to 20,000 votes, while McGeer was edged out by NDP candidate Darlene Marzari by 55 votes. It was the only time Vancouver-Point Grey as a dual-member district returned members of two different parties. It was also the only time a multi-member district returned only women in British Columbia electoral historyConsigned to the backbenches, she became disenchanted with Premier Bill Vander Zalm's leadership and broke with him and Social Credit over the issue of abortion, which Vander Zalm opposed. Campbell decided to leave provincial politics and enter federal politics.
Federal politics
Campbell was elected in the 1988 federal election as the member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre. She won the party nomination after the incumbent, Pat Carney, declined to stand for renomination. In 1989, Campbell was appointed to the cabinet as minister of state, a junior role to the minister of Indian and northern affairs. From 1990 to 1993, she held the post of minister of justice and attorney general, overseeing notable amendments to the Criminal Code in the areas of firearms control and sexual assault. In 1990, following the Supreme Court's decision to invalidate the country's abortion law, Campbell was responsible for introducing Bill C-43 to govern abortions in Canada. Although it passed the House of Commons, it failed to pass the Senate, leaving Canada with no national law governing abortions.In 1993, Campbell was transferred to the posts of minister of national defence and minister of veterans affairs. Notable events during her tenure included dealing with the controversial issue of replacing shipborne helicopters for the navy and for search-and-rescue units. The actions by Canadian Airborne Regiment in the scandal known as the Somalia Affair also first emerged while Campbell was minister. When the Liberal Party of Canada took power, the incident became the subject of a lengthy public inquiry, continuing to focus attention on Campbell and the PCs, but with significant blame being placed with the military's, not government's, leadership.