Kim Campbell

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The Rt. Hon. Avril Phaedra Douglas ("Kim") Campbell, PC, QC, LLB, LLD (h.c.)
19th Prime Minister of Canada
In office June 25, 1993 – November 4, 1993
Preceded by	Brian Mulroney
Succeeded by	Jean Chrétien
Born	March 10, 1947 (age 60) Port Alberni, British Columbia
Political party	Progressive Conservative\Social Credit
Spouse	Nathan Divinsky - divorced, Howard Eddy - divorced, Hershey Felder - common law spouse
Profession	Lawyer, academic
Religion	Anglican (lapsed)

Avril Phaedra Douglas Campbell, PC, QC, LL.B, LL.D (h.c.) commonly known as Kim Campbell (born 10 March 1947), was the 19th Prime Minister of Canada from 25 June to 4 November 1993. As Prime Minister, she was unique as the only woman ever to hold Canada's highest office and the third woman to serve as a head of government in North America (after Eugenia Charles of Dominica and Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua). She was also the second woman in history to sit at the table of the Group of Eight leaders, after British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. According to Canadian protocol, as a former Prime Minister, she is permanently styled "The Right Honourable."

[edit] Personal background

Campbell was born in Port Alberni, British Columbia to George Thomas Campbell (1920-2002) and Phyllis "Lissa" Cook. Her mother left the family when Campbell was 12, leaving Kim and her sister Alix to be raised by their father. As a teenager, Avril permanently nicknamed herself Kim, perhaps for actress Kim Novak.^[1]

While in her pre-teens, Campbell was a host and reporter on the CBC children's program Junior Television Club^[2].

She earned a B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority), then studied towards (an ultimately uncompleted Doctor of Philosophy) doctorate in Soviet Government at the London School of Economics. She earned, in 1983, an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia. She was called to the British Columbia Bar in 1984 and practiced law in Vancouver until 1986.

Campbell married Nathan Divinsky in 1972. During their marriage, 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 allegedly once told the board to "Fuck off," which author Gordon Donaldson compares to Prime Minister Trudeau's fuddle duddle incident.^[3] In total, she was a trustee there from 1980 to 1984 (Divinsky also had been chair). 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. She is currently in a common law marriage to Hershey Felder, an actor, playwright, composer, and concert pianist. Childless, she remains close to Nathan Divinsky's daughter Pamela.

[edit] Political life

Campbell was the unsuccessful BC Social Credit Party candidate in Vancouver Centre for a seat in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in 1983, capturing 12,740 votes (19.3%). Campbell ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the BC Social Credit Party in the summer of 1986 (placing last with fewer than a dozen votes from delegates), but was elected in October 1986 to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly as a Socred member for Vancouver-Point Grey.

A few years later she resigned from the legislature to run in the 1988 federal election as a Progressive Conservative in Vancouver Centre, in downtown Vancouver. She won and immediately joined the Cabinet, becoming Minister of State for Indian Affairs and Northern Development (1989-1990), followed by Canada's first female Minister of Justice and Attorney-General (1990-1993). She was then appointed as the first female Minister of National Defence after Mulroney shuffled his Cabinet in 1993.

In February, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced his retirement from politics. Campbell defeated Jean Charest at the Progressive Conservative leadership convention that June. Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn formally appointed her Prime Minister on 25 June. As a concession to Charest, Campbell appointed him to the largely ceremonial post of Deputy Prime Minister.

Also in 1993, Campbell and Eddy were divorced, although the divorce was finalized before she was sworn in as Prime Minister.

In an unrelated story, Campbell was the Canadian Justice Minister at the time of David Milgaard's release from prison after serving 23 years for a crime he did not commit. In her time as Justice Minister, Campbell repressed several appeal requests from Milgaard's lawyers, and also disregarded a public address from Milgaard's mother, Joyce Milgaard. She came under heavy criticism for her position, which may have contributed to her loss of office in the 1993 federal election.

[edit] Prime Ministership

Campbell's career was characterized by some as "a quick rise to fame from a relatively unknown cabinet member to prime minister." In fact, she had served in four cabinet portfolios prior to running for the party leadership and had more experience than eleven of the 18 men who preceded her as prime minister, including Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, who had no cabinet experience at all, and Pierre Trudeau, who had served only one year as Minister of Justice. Campbell had developed a considerable profile during her three years as Minister of Justice and garnered support of more than half the PC caucus when she declared for the leadership.

Like John Turner before her, Campbell's term as Prime Minister would be almost entirely dominated by an electoral campaign. Initially she was very popular^[4]- and became the eponym of "Campbellmania," just as one of her predecessors, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, was the subject of late-1960s Trudeaumania. For a while, she appeared to have a chance of repairing her party's reputation, which had been badly damaged after a number of scandals during the Mulroney government.

Campbell did extensive campaigning during the summer, touring the nation and attending barbecues and other events. By the end of the summer, her personal popularity had increased greatly, far surpassing that of Chrétien.^[5] Support for the Progressive Conservative Party had also increased, and they were only a few points behind the Liberals, while Reform had been reduced to single digits.

Campbell also became the only Canadian Prime Minister not to have resided at 24 Sussex Drive since that address became the official home of the Prime Minister of Canada in 1951. Initially, Campbell's predecessor Brian Mulroney remained at 24 Sussex while renovations on his new home in Montreal were being completed. Campbell instead took up residence at Harrington Lake, and did not move into 24 Sussex after Mulroney left.

[edit] The 1993 election

When an election was called in the fall of 1993, the party had high hopes that they might be able to remain the government and, if not, would at least be a strong opposition to a Liberal minority government.

However, Campbell's initial popularity soon declined due to public-relations mistakes committed after the writ was dropped. When she was running for the party leadership, Campbell's frank honesty was seen as an important asset and a sharp contrast from Mulroney's highly polished style. However, that backfired when she told reporters and a Rideau Hall event that it was unlikely that the deficit or unemployment would be much reduced before the "end of the century". During the election campaign, she stated that discussing a complete overhaul of Canada's social policies in all their complexities could not be done in just 47 days (the time allotted to an election campaign). However, a reporter truncated this comment to "an election is no time to discuss serious issues."

Campbell appeared to have troubles relating to "regular" Canadians, and many felt that she had an overly condescending and pretentious tone. In addition, she was criticized as carrying much the same attitudes and positions of her widely detested predecessor. She was frequently greeted by the activist chant "Kim, Kim, you're just like him."

Some have attempted to point to her gender as a major contributing factor to her historic loss, but there is scant evidence to support that assertion. Analysis of the press coverage of the campaign reveals that a constant theme of the coverage itself was its unfairness. Journalists wrote openly about the double standard applied to Campbell, but there was little or no attempt to analyse why this was the case. Scholarly analysis by experts such as Richard Johnston of the University of British Columbia asserts that Campbell's "47 days" comment, (a response to a journalist's attempt to charge her with a hidden agenda) was not the key factor in the vote decline, but was made after the trend had shifted. Rather, the attempt to attribute a hidden agenda on social programs to her in and of itself reminded voters of what they believed about Mulroney - that he would say one thing but do another. Without time to establish a new record for her government, Campbell remained vulnerable to the negative perceptions people had of her predecessor.

The Conservatives' support tailed off rapidly as the campaign progressed. By October, it was obvious that Campbell and the Tories would not be reelected. All polls showed the Liberals were on their way to at least a minority government, and would probably win a majority without dramatic measures. However, Campbell was still personally more popular than Liberal leader Jean Chrétien. Knowing this, the Conservative campaign team put together a series of ads attacking Chrétien. The second ad appeared to mock Chrétien's facial paralysis, and generated a severe backlash from all sides. Even some Tory candidates called for the ad to be yanked. Campbell claims to have not been directly responsible for the ad, and to have ordered it off the air^[6] over her staff's objections. However, she didn't apologize and lost a chance to contain the fallout from the ad.

The ad flap was widely regarded as the final nail in Campbell's coffin. Conservative support plummeted into the teens, all but assuring that the Liberals would win a majority government short of a complete meltdown in the dying days of the campaign. Canadian humourist Will Ferguson suggested that this incident meant Campbell should receive "some of the blame" for her party's losses, though "taking over the party leadership from Brian (Mulroney) was a lot like taking over the controls of a 747 just before it plunges into the Rockies."^[7]

The Somalia Affair took place during her "watch" as Minister of National Defence and became a handicap during her subsequent period of public life. When the Liberal Party of Canada took power, the incident became the subject of a lengthy public inquiry, aimed further at embarrassing Campbell and the PCs.

On election night, the Conservatives were swept from power in a massive Liberal landslide. Campbell herself was defeated in Vancouver Centre by rookie Liberal Hedy Fry. It was only the third time in Canadian history that a sitting prime minister was unseated at the same time that his or her party lost an election. In 1921, Arthur Meighen was unseated in his Manitoba riding at the same time that his Conservatives were defeated; this recurred in 1926 to end his second brief tenure as prime minister. Mackenzie King led the Liberals to victory in the 1925 election, but lost his seat and had to win a by-election to get back into Parliament. Except for Jean Charest, every Cabinet member running for re-election lost their seat. With few exceptions, the Tories' previous support in the west moved to Reform, while the Bloc Québécois inherited most Tory support in Quebec. In some cases, the Bloc pushed Cabinet ministers from Quebec into third place.

The Tories still finished with over two million votes, taking third place in the popular vote, and falling only two percentage points short of Reform for second place. However, due to quirks in the first past the post system, Tory support was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into victories in individual ridings. In contrast, the geographic concentration of support for Reform in the West and the Bloc in Quebec garnered them significant numbers of parliamentary seats. As a result, the Tories won only two seats compared to Reform's 52 and the Bloc's 54. It was the worst defeat in party history, and the worst defeat ever suffered by a governing party at the federal level.

Campbell faced hurdles that she blamed as being insurmountable despite evidence to the contrary. Mulroney left office as one of the most (and according to Campbell, the most^[8]) unpopular prime ministers since opinion polling began in the 1940s. He considerably hampered his own party's campaign effort by staging a very lavish international farewell tour at taxpayer expense and staying in office until only two and a half months were left in his mandate. Under the circumstances, Campbell came into office with almost no room to make mistakes. Nonetheless, Campbell's pre-election summer tour did put the Progressive Conservatives back up in the polls to only a few points behind the Liberals. Her finger-pointing after the massive loss has been seen by some as more evidence of her lack of fitness for the position.

By the time she dropped the writ for the 1993 election, she was only a few days from becoming the first prime minister to allow a Parliament to expire. Another factor was that the race was a five-way contest with Reform and the Bloc competing with the three traditional parties for votes. There was no issue like the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement five years earlier to make support for such parties seem risky.

Soon after the defeat, Campbell resigned as party leader; Charest succeeded her.

[edit] Post-political career

Campbell returned to lecturing in political science for a few years, this time at Harvard. Then, in 1996, the Liberal government that had defeated Campbell's appointed her Consul General to Los Angeles, a post in which she remained until 2000.

In 1997, Campbell collaborated with her third husband, composer, playwright and actor Hershey Felder, on the production of a musical, Noah's Ark in Los Angeles. From 2001 to 2004, she lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She continues as an Honorary Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School. She also is the director of several publicly traded companies in high technology and biotechnology.

From 1999 to 2003 she chaired the Council of Women World Leaders, a network of women who hold or have held the office of president or prime minister. She was succeeded by former Irish President Mary Robinson. From 2003 until 2005 she served as President of the International Women's Forum, a global organization of women of preeminent achievement whose headquarters is in Washington, D.C.

Campbell serves on the Board of the International Crisis Group and the Forum of Federations, and is on the advisory bodies of numerous international organizations. In 2004, she was included in the list of 50 most important political leaders in history in the Almanac of World History compiled by the National Geographic Society. She was cited for her status as the only woman head of government of a North American country (defined variously), but controversy ensued among academics in Canada over the merit of this honour since she had not won an election and because many senior ministers in the Mulroney government had not contested the leadership convention.

She was a founding member of the Club of Madrid, an independent organization whose main purpose is to strengthen democracy in the world. Its membership is by invitation only and consists of former Heads of State and Government. In 2004 Campbell assumed the role of Secretary General of the organization.

On 30 November 2004, Campbell's official portrait for the parliamentary Prime Minister's gallery was unveiled. The painting was created by Victoria, British Columbia artist David Goatley. Kim Campbell said she was "deeply honoured" to be the only woman to have her picture in the Prime Ministers' corridor, stating: "I really look forward to the day when there are many other female faces." The painting shows a pensive Campbell sitting on a chair with richly coloured Haida capes and robes in the background, symbolizing her time as a cabinet minister and as an academic. The unveiling took place amidst protests against President George W. Bush visiting Canada (see [1]).

During the federal election campaign of 2005/2006, Campbell endorsed the candidacy of Tony Fogarassy, the Conservative Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Vancouver Centre. Campbell also clarified to reporters that she is a supporter of the new Tory party (see [2]). Fogarassy lost the election, placing a distant third.

[edit] Legacy

Prime Minister Kim Campbell's official portrait unveiled in 2004. The stylized "K" pin on her right shoulder was Campbell's trademark during her leadership campaign and was designed and made by Vancouver jeweller Martha Sturdy, the Haida design in the background represents the province of British Columbia, the Queen's Counsel robes draped over the chair are representative of her time as Justice Minister and the red and black-striped robes represent her time as a university professor.

As Justice Minister, Campbell brought about a new rape law that clarified sexual assault and whose passage firmly entrenched that in cases involving sexual assault, "no means NO." She also introduced the rape shield law, legislation that protects a woman's sexual past from being explored during trial. While Campbell had little time to usher in legislation during her six months as Prime Minister, she did implement radical changes to the structure of the Canadian government. Under her tenure, the federal cabinet's size was cut from over seventy-five cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries to just twenty-three. The number of cabinet committees was reduced from eleven to five. She was also the first prime minister to convene a First Ministers' conference for consultation prior to representing Canada at the G7 Summit. Due to her brief time in office, Campbell holds a unique spot amongst Canadian prime ministers in that she made no Senate appointments.

Campbell has harshly criticized Mulroney for not handing power to her sooner than June 1993. In her view, when she finally became prime minister, she had almost no time or chance to make up ground on the Liberals once her initial popularity wore off. In her memoirs, Time and Chance as well has her response to The Secret Mulroney Tapes, Campbell even suggested that Mulroney knew the Tories would be defeated in the upcoming election, and wanted a "scapegoat who would bear the burden of his unpopularity" rather than a true successor. Even so, most observers believe the 1993 debacle was a vote against Mulroney rather than a rejection of Campbell.

The Progressive Conservatives managed to return from the brink of destruction under Charest and Joe Clark, Although they survived as a distinct political entity for another ten years after the 1993 debacle, they never recovered their previous standing. The party subsequently merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004 and the Conservatives regained power in the election of 2006.

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.

[edit] Honours

• Member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada
• Queen's Counsel
• Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal
• Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics
• Honorary Fellow of the Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

[edit] Honorary degrees

• The Law Society of Upper Canada (LL.D) (1991)
• Brock University (LL.D) (1998)
• Northeastern University, Boston (DPS) (1999)
• University of British Columbia (LL.D) (23 November 2000) [3]
• Mount Holyoke College (LL.D) (2004)
• Chatham College (LL.D) (2005)
• Arizona State University (D.Litt) (December 2005) [4]

[edit] References

1. ^ Gordon Donaldson, The Prime Ministers of Canada, (Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1997), p. 351.
2. ^ http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-2084-12975/politics_economy/kim_campbell/clip1
3. ^ Donaldson, p. 354.
4. ^ Peter C. Newman, The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister. Random House Canada, 2005, p. 363.
5. ^ Woolstencroft 15.
6. ^ Donaldson, p. 367.
7. ^ Will Ferguson, Bastards and Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders Past and Present (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1999), p. 284.
8. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/weekinreview/25word.html?ex=1285300800&en=32d7b3545e99910a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Kim Campbell

• Political Biography from the Library of Parliament
• Biography from the Kennedy School of Government
• 2004 commencement speech, Mount Holyoke College
• CBC Digital Archives – Kim Campbell, First and Foremost
• Official page of the documentary film "Kim Campbell:Through the Looking Glass"

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