campaigns, sometimes even losing elections their parties had seemed poised to win. This gave rise to extensive discussion of the double standards that the public applies to women in leadership roles; some commentators have noted, for instance, that when a party led by a woman loses an election, much greater blame is placed on the leader herself — or even on the entire concept of women as leaders — than when a man leads his party to defeat. Prior to the 21st century only one woman, Catherine Callbeck in Prince Edward Island, had ever won election to a first ministership in Canada — notably, she led her party into an election where the main opposition party was also led by a woman, Patricia Mella, and thus a woman would have been elected premier of Prince Edward Island in 1993 regardless of which party won. Political analysts have debated, however, whether either woman could have won the election if the other party had been led by a man. Further, Callbeck's government proved unpopular, and she held power for just three years before she was forced to step down in favour of a new leader. However, as the number of women leaders has increased, several other women leaders have since led their parties to election victories. Campbell's Progressive Conservatives and McLaughlin's New Democratic Party were decimated in 1993, both failing to reach official party status, and Lyn McLeod's Ontario Liberal Party lost the 1995 provincial election despite having more than a 10 per cent lead in the polls when the election was called. McLeod was criticized for a perceived tendency toward weak leadership and flip-flopping on the issues, especially after she withdrew her party's support from the 1994 Equality Rights Statute Amendment Act – PC election ads depicted McLeod as a weathervane shifting in the wind, and the party's popular support dropped almost 20 percentage points in the space of just 40 days. Alexa McDonough led the New Democrats to a modest resurgence in the 1997 election, but lost seats again in the 2000 vote. Several women leaders of provincial parties, including Sharon Carstairs, Lynda Haverstock and Nancy MacBeth, proved unable to capitalize on early signs of popularity, all ultimately losing significant ground for their parties. Pat Duncan, meanwhile, won the 2000 Yukon election against parties led by men, but her government lasted just two years before it was reduced to a