Women As Provincial/territorial Premiers
A total of ten women have served or are currently serving as the premier of a province or territory in Canada. The first female premier in Canadian history was Rita Johnston, who served as Premier of British Columbia for seven months in 1991 after she won the leadership of the governing party.
Women achieved a significant breakthrough in the early 2010s, when a number of women won the leadership of the governing political parties in their respective provinces within a short time of each other. Several journalists christened 2011 as "The Year of the Woman" because of the breakthrough. As of January 2013, Canada has six women who are serving as provincial or territorial premiers, including the four most populated provinces – meaning that almost half of Canada's provinces and territories are led by women, and that more than half of all the women who have ever served as provincial or territorial premiers are the current incumbents of their offices.
As of 2013, seven of Canada's ten provinces have had a female premier, but only one of those to date has had more than one. All three of Canada's territories have had one female premier each.
Upon winning the 2013 Ontario Liberal Party leadership election, Kathleen Wynne also earned the distinction of being the first out lesbian to hold a first ministership in Canada.
Read more about this topic: Women In Canadian Politics
Famous quotes containing the words women, provincial and/or territorial:
“Tailor’s work—the finishing of men’s outside garments—was the “trade” learned most frequently by women in [the 1820s and 1830s], and one or more of my older sisters worked at it; I think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for mankind.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)