Canada ranks 45th in the world in representation of women in the national lower house.
It nominally increased to a record 66 with the by-election wins of Martha Hall Findlay and Joyce Murray on March 17, 2008, although the resignation of Brenda Chamberlain from the House effective April 7, 2008 reduced the number of women back to 65 just one week after Findlay and Murray were sworn in as MPs.
Ten of the fourteen female government MPs (71%) are ministers or parliamentary secretaries.
Stephen Harper has only made two Senate appointments to date, both men (Michael Fortier and Bert Brown).
The previous prime minister, Paul Martin, made 17 Senate appointments, of whom six (35.3%) were women.
Two current Senators are members of the Cabinet; as noted above, one of them is a woman, Marjory LeBreton.