Ontario NDP MPP Catherine Fife has been elected chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP), a network representing female legislators from across more than 180 member parliaments, marking the first time a Canadian has held the role in over a decade.
Fife described her election as “an underdog situation,” saying she was “quite surprised” by the outcome after a full day of voting. “On the first ballot, I was only 10 votes behind, and I think that was the most surprising one,” she told QP Briefing in an interview. “It was a tense day.”
The Waterloo MPP said what moved her most was the “cross-party support from Canada,” calling her victory “a very much Team Canada movement.”