Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell PC CC OBC KC (born March 10, 1947) is a former Canadian politician, diplomat, lawyer, and writer who served as the 19th prime minister of Canada from June to November 1993.

She had spent several years studying the Russian language and claimed she was nearly fluent,[9] 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.

[10] Campbell ultimately left her doctoral studies, returning to live in Vancouver after marrying Nathan Divinsky, her longtime partner, in 1972.

During her marriage to Divinsky, Campbell lectured part-time in political science at the University of British Columbia and at Vancouver Community College.

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.

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.

Notable events during her tenure included dealing with the controversial issue of replacing shipborne helicopters for the navy and for search-and-rescue units.

[17][18] 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.

[19] Upon assumption of the Justice portfolio, Campbell was handed the petition for a new trial in the case of David Milgaard, a man who had been wrongfully convicted for murder in 1970 and spent decades trying to clear his name before being exonerated in 1993.

[20] When later Mulroney was confronted by Milgaard's mother, he had "saluted her courage and determination and ... show[n] his concern for her son's health", which "blindsided" and "floored" Campbell and was interpreted by media and some MPs as evidence that the prime minister had taken sides in the case.

[20] Campbell says she "told the press [that] Mulroney was much too good a lawyer to intervene improperly" and "never breathed a word" to her about it, nor did anyone in his office attempt to influence her decision.

Campbell instead took up residence at Harrington Lake, the PM's summer and weekend retreat, located in rural Quebec, north of Ottawa, and she did not move into 24 Sussex after Mulroney left.

Like Charles Tupper and John Turner, Campbell never faced a Parliament during her brief tenure, as her term was filled by the summer break and the election campaign.

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.

University of New Brunswick professor Joanna Everitt writes that while the media simply reported the facts about rival male leaders such as Jean Chrétien, Campbell's actions were usually interpreted as having some motive (drawing up support, appealing to a group, etc.

He considerably hampered his own party's campaign effort by staging a very lavish international farewell tour at taxpayer expense, and by delaying his retirement until only 2+1⁄2 months were left in the Tories' five-year mandate.

She was briefly rumoured to be sent to Moscow as the ambassador to Russia,[34] but in 1996, Campbell was appointed consul general to Los Angeles by the Chrétien government, a post in which she remained until 2000.

She served on the board of the International Crisis Group, a non-government organization (NGO) that aims to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts.

She served on the board of the Forum of Federations, the EastWest Institute, and is a founding trustee of The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College London.

Campbell was the founding chair of the International Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Foundation for Effective Governance, an NGO formed in September 2007 with the aid of businessman Rinat Akhmetov.

[38] She has appeared on the CBC Television program Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, a show that profiles and selects young prospective leaders, and has also been an occasional panellist on Real Time with Bill Maher.

On August 2, 2016, Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that Campbell had agreed to chair a seven-person committee to prepare a short list of candidates to succeed Thomas Cromwell on the Supreme Court of Canada.

[40] In August 2019, Campbell faced controversy when she said that she hoped that Hurricane Dorian would directly hit U.S. president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

[41][42] Campbell courted controversy on Twitter by claiming that female newscasters who expose their "arms" on TV are taken less seriously,[43] despite having once posed with bare shoulders herself in a famously suggestive photograph.

Due to her brief time in office, Campbell holds a unique spot among Canadian prime ministers in that she made no Senate appointments.

During that period they were led by Jean Charest (1993–1998), Elsie Wayne (1998) and then, for the second time, by Joe Clark (1998–2003) (who had been opposition leader and briefly prime minister 20 years earlier).

The new generation of right-leaning Conservatives gained power in the election of 2006, ensuring the "Tory" nickname's survival in the federal politics of Canada.

[56] 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 her brief term in office was marked by very few, if any, major political accomplishments.

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.