Bernadette Jordan, the Member of Parliament for the South Shore-Saint Margarets, witnessed history as Julie Payette assumed the role of Governor General of Canada. “She was amazing — speaking in three languages without notes,” Jordan says. “And how she brought her family into the speech was incredible.” Payette’s assumption of the role is a small indicator of progress for women in the political sphere in Canada, a sphere where Jordan would like to see more women involved. She’s recently been named to the Standing Committee on Status of Women of the House of Commons. This committee was established in 2004 with a mandate of studying “policies, programs, expenditures, and legislation of departments and agencies, including Status of Women Canada, that conduct work related to the status of women.” There are 11 members, from all three parties, who form this committee. “I’m proud, as the only woman elected to parliament in…

The Canadian government has earmarked $3.5 billion to advance the health of women and children in Nigeria, Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Christopher Thorney has said. Mr Thorney made this known during the Multi-Country Dissemination of the Rapid Access Expansion (RAcE) Project on Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illnesses (iCCM) in Abuja on Tuesday. He said that Canada has a long-standing history of working to advance the health of women and children in Nigeria, including polio eradication efforts and other health initiatives. He noted that Canada’s latest initiative will span a 2015-2020 template and targets related programs during the five years. Mr Thorney, who commended the remarkable progress made so far in reducing child mortality, said that significant work remains to be done. “Troubling statistics are there, in 2016, about 5.6 million children under the age of five died worldwide; to make that more understandable, that is about 15,000…