Christine Stewart

Christine Susan Stewart, PC (January 3, 1941 – April 25, 2015) was a Canadian politician. A Liberal Party Member of Parliament for the riding of Northumberland, she was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as an Opposition member by a margin of 27 votes in 1988. She was elected twice more in 1993 and 1997 with substantive majorities and served in the cabinets of prime minister Jean Chrétien first as Secretary of State (Latin America and Africa) from 1993 to 1997, and then as Minister of the Environment from 1997 to 1999. She announced her resignation from politics for personal reasons before the election of 2000.
With a degree in nursing (BScN) from the University of Toronto, she practiced nursing for a short time before becoming involved in international development work first as a volunteer with her husband in Honduras in 1971-72. She co-founded a non-government organization, Horizons of Friendship, of which she was co-executive director until 1988. Additionally, she raised her family of three children, served as a school board trustee and on several community church, social and arts bodies in Cobourg, Ontario.
As Secretary of State, Latin America and Africa, she made official visits to most countries on those continents, many of those visits representing the first visit of a Canadian minister, although many of those countries visited had received significant Canadian official development assistance for many years.
As Minister of the Environment, Stewart headed the Canadian delegation to the Kyoto climate change negotiations and signed the Kyoto Accord on behalf of Canada. She pushed for action on the Kyoto Accord, improvements in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
After leaving Canadian politics, Stewart acted as special envoy to Cameroon for the Commonwealth Secretary General until 2006, and continued her interest in addressing social issues in her community and work on good governance internationally.
She died on April 25, 2015.