The

41st Canadian Parliament The 41st Canadian Parliament was in session from June 2, 2011 to August 2, 2015, with the membership of its House of Commons having been determined by the results of the 2011 federal election held on May 2, 2011. Parliament convened on June 2, 2 ...

includes a record number of female

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

, with 76 women elected to the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...

in the 2011 election. This represents a gain of seven seats over the previous record of 69 women in the

40th Canadian Parliament The 40th Canadian Parliament was in session from November 18, 2008 to March 26, 2011. It was the last Parliament of the longest-running minority government in Canadian history that began with the previous Parliament. The membership of its House ...

. By contrast, the

112th United States Congress The 112th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, from January 3, 2011, until January 3, 2013. It convened in Washington, D.C. on January 3, 2011, and ended on January 3, 2013, 17 ...

had 72 women sitting in the 435-seat

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

, and the

113th United States Congress The 113th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015, during the fifth and sixth years of Presidency of Barack Obama, Barack Obama's presiden ...

has 81. Of those 76 women, 38 were elected for the first time in the 2011 election. This included former PSAC president

Nycole Turmel Nycole Turmel (born September 1, 1942) is a Canadian politician who served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Hull—Aylmer from 2011 to 2015. A member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Turmel served as the party's interim leader from 2011 ...

, who was the first woman to hold the position. She later accepted the role of interim leader of the

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National ...

with the unanimous support of caucus, after

Jack Layton John Gilbert Layton (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011) was a Canadian academic and politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2003 to 2011 and leader of the Official Opposition in 2011. He previously sat on To ...

took a temporary leave of absence to fight a second bout of cancer. Layton died on August 22, 2011, at which time Turmel formally assumed the title of

Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

. She held the post until

the election ''The Election'' () is a political drama series produced by Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV). With a budget of HK$15 million, filming started in July 2014 and wrapped up on 28 October 2014. Popularly voted to be the inaugural drama of ...

Thomas Mulcair Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

as leader of the NDP, and was the second woman to serve as Leader of the Opposition (the first was

Deborah Grey Deborah Cleland Grey, (born July 1, 1952) is a retired Canadian member of Parliament from Alberta for the Reform Party of Canada, the Canadian Alliance, and the Conservative Party of Canada. She was the first female leader of the Opposition in ...

). The

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

Elizabeth May Elizabeth Evans May (born June 9, 1954) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, author, activist, and lawyer who is serving as the leader of the Green Party of Canada since 2022, and previously served as the leader from 2006 to 2019. S ...

was the first woman leader of a political party to be elected to the House of Commons since former NDP leader

Alexa McDonough Alexa Ann McDonough ( Shaw; August 11, 1944 – January 15, 2022) was a Canadian politician who became the first woman to lead a major, recognized political party in Nova Scotia, when she was elected the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party's (NSN ...

. As they hold only two seats, the Greens are not recognized as having

official party status Official party status refers to the Westminster practice which is officially used in the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures of recognizing parliamentary caucuses of political parties. In official documents, this is sometimes re ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

. As well as a record number of women overall, the 41st Parliament will also contain a record number of younger women, with 18 women MPs who were under the age of 40 on election day, compared to just five in the previous Parliament."Parliament gets a makeover: An influx of young women could help change Canadian politics for good". ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...

'', May 6, 2011. The longest-serving women in the 41st Parliament are

Hedy Fry Hedy Madeleine Fry, (born August 6, 1941) is a Trinidadian-Canadian politician and physician who is currently the longest-serving female Member of Parliament, winning nine consecutive elections in the constituency of Vancouver Centre including ...

and

Diane Ablonczy Diane Ablonczy (née Broadway; ; born May 6, 1949) is a former Canadian Member of Parliament who served in the House of Commons of Canada. Ablonczy represented Calgary ridings from 1993 to 2015, sitting first with the Reform Party of Canada, ...

, who were first elected in the 1993 election. Three women who were elected in the 2011 election have since resigned their seats and four women have been elected in

by-elections A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

. As of November 17, 2014, there are 77 women currently serving in the House of Commons, and 258 women have served overall in the body's history.

Party standings

Members

† denotes women who were newly elected in the 2011 election and are serving their first term in office. †† denotes women who were not members of the 40th Parliament, but previously served in another parliament.

References

{{Women in Canadian politics * 41st Canadian Parliament Parliament, 41