A gender-balanced Cabinet in Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been making headlines since the moment he won the elections recently. The 43-year-old former schoolteacher and son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau again became a newsmaker on Thursday when he was sworn in as the prime minister — this time for the constitution of his Cabinet.

He has appointed women and men to an equal number of positions in his 30-member Cabinet. Asked by a reporter why it was so important for him to make his Cabinet gender-balanced, the self-proclaimed feminist is reported to have said: “Because it’s 2015!”

His female half of the Cabinet includes Health Minister Jane Philpott, Justice Minister and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna. 

The Cabinet has included members of several ethnic groups, two disabled people, an openly gay politician, and two aboriginals, one of whom, Jody Wilson-Raybould, a prosecutor from British Columbia, holds the key justice post, according to a New York Times report.