The 42nd Canadian Parliament includes a record number of female Members of Parliament, with 88 women elected to the 338-member House of Commons of Canada (26%) in the 2015 election. This represents a gain of twelve seats over the previous record of 76 women in the 41st Canadian Parliament. By contrast, the 114th United States Congress had 105 women sitting in the 435-seat United States House of Representatives.
Of those 88 women, 54 were elected for the first time in the 2015 election.
In his first speech following the election, Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau indicated that for the first time in Canadian history, he planned to appoint a fully gender-balanced Cabinet. On November 4, he announced a cabinet which included 15 men and 15 women.
The longest-serving woman in the 42nd Parliament is Hedy Fry, who was first elected in the 1993 election.
On April 3, 2017 four women were elected in by-elections. As of December 2017, there are 92 women currently serving in parliament, representing 27.2 per cent of elected Members of Parliament.
â denotes women who were newly elected in the 2015 election and are serving their first term in office. â â denotes women who were not members of the 41st parliament, but previously served in another parliament. â â â denotes women who were newly elected in byelections since the 2015 election.