Video: 'Kim Campbell, Canada's WORST prime minister

(Friday, June 25, 1993) — Under a portrait of Queen Victoria, Kim Campbell was sworn in today in Ottawa as the first woman to head the Canadian government.

Campbell took her first official step as the country’s 19th Prime Minister by announcing a slimmed-down Cabinet, the smallest in 20 years.

The 46-year-old former Vancouver lawyer, who has promised “to do politics differently” to try to be more responsive to the people, named a 24-member Cabinet, to replace 34 ministers under Brian Mulroney.

As another symbol of her new, more economical leadership style, Campbell got her new ministers to use taxis, instead of chauffeured cars, to transport themselves to the neo-classical Rideau Hall, along the Ottawa River, where the changing of the guard takes place.

“She’s a decisive woman — that’s what I like about her,” said Helen Reid, 28, a government worker, one of a crowd of onlookers in the sun-drenched driveway outside the gates.

Campbell would serve as prime minister for only four months until November, leaving office after her Progressive Conservative Party was decimated in the federal election. Her 132-day premiership would be the third-shortest in Canadian history.

Campbell was also the first baby boomer to hold the office, as well as the only prime minister born in British Columbia.