Flora MacDonald was a trailblazer for women in Canadian politics. With her unrelenting work ethic and unwavering support for the Progressive Conservative Party, and her ability to connect with the public, she became Canada’s first female Foreign Minister, later playing a vital role in the 1979 Iranian US Embassy hostage crisis.
Inspired by Margaret Thatcher’s 1975 defeat of Conservative leader Edward Heath, MacDonald became the first woman to launch a high-profile campaign to lead the Conservative Party in 1976. The nomination convention, however, quickly turned to disappointment. Having been pledged 300 votes, she only received 214 on the first leadership vote and bowed out. The old guard were not yet ready to embrace a feminist.
Although “unable to talk to anyone in the party” and “angry for a while”, MacDonald’s resilience shone through – and over the next 12 years, she held a number of ministerial roles.
Born on the sparsely populated Cape Breton Island in 1926, Flora Isabel MacDonald was the daughter of George Frederick MacDonald and Mary Isabel Royle, whose families had emigrated from Scotland in the mid-19th century. Her father was in charge of Western Union’s transatlantic telegraph terminus. His return from work was a daily highlight and pricked her interest in world affairs. She recalled, “He returned with the first news from Europe and around the world… It was a much better education than I ever got at school.”
After leaving school, MacDonald hitchhiked around post-war Europe, spending time in England – where she worked as a farm labourer, a secretary at Selfridges and typed the manuscript of a book for Daphne du Maurier – and in Scotland, where she met the four students who would steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in 1953.
Upon returning to Canada, MacDonald entered politics, working on Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield’s campaign, which won an upset victory in the 1956 provincial election. Soon after, she was hired to work as a secretary to the party chairman in the national office, under leader John Diefenbaker. She also worked on Diefenbaker’s successful 1957 and 1958 election campaigns, with the former ending 22 years of Liberal rule.
MacDonald grew disillusioned with Diefenbaker and was fired by him when he learned of her support for the party president’s campaign for a leadership review. She campaigned in numerous provincial elections – and in 1967 helped to topple Diefenbaker by aiding his successor, Robert Stanfield; she was at his side during the unsuccessful 1968 election.
With a swell of local support, MacDonald made her own political leap and was nominated to stand in Kingston, Ontario, during the 1972 election, winning the seat with a large majority. She was the only woman in the Progressive Conservative caucus, and one of only three women (from 308 MPs) in Parliament during Pierre Trudeau’s minority Liberal government. She was soon appointed shadow Minister for Indian Affairs.
After Joe Clark’s 1979 election success, MacDonald was appointed Canada’s first female Foreign Minister. Later that summer, she was heavily involved in the global response to the crisis of the Vietnamese boat people exodus following the end of the Vietnam War; she developed a plan whereby the Canadian government promised to match funding for the number of refugees sponsored by members of the general public, allowing over 60,000 Vietnamese refugees to enter Canada.
In November 1979, she was faced with the Iran hostage crisis following the storming and seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution. Six American diplomats escaped and hid in the Canadian Embassy. Her first idea was that the diplomats should pose as Canadian tourists and cycle to Turkey.
In what became known as the “Canadian Caper”, MacDonald authorised the issuing of false passports and money as part of a plan to rescue the escapees, with the Americans posing as Canadian embassy staff. In the event, after 79 days, they boarded a Swissair flight to Zurich pretending to be a Canadian film crew. The event was later dramatised in the 2012 Academy Award-winning Hollywood film Argo.
However, MacDonald’s tenure as Foreign Minister was short-lived, as Clark’s minority government was defeated on a budget amendment in December 1979. The Conservatives were voted out of office in the subsequent federal election in February 1980. In opposition, MacDonald served as critic for External Affairs and remained loyal to Clark, who was later beaten to the leadership by Brian Mulroney. With his 1984 election victory, he gave MacDonald the positions of Minister of Employment and Immigration and then Minister of Communications.
After leaving politics, MacDonald devoted her time to international humanitarian work for a variety of charities, including Oxfam, CARE and Médecins Sans Frontièresx. As head of her own charity, she made 12 visits to Afghanistan, wearing a veil and living in mud-bricked houses, to fight for women’s education. She also founded her own NGO, Future Generations Canada, served as chair of the International Development Research Centre, and became a popular visiting lecturer at Edinburgh University, where she impressed students by running up Arthur’s Seat every morning.
Flora MacDonald, politician and humanitarian: born North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada 3 June 1926; died Ottawa, Ontario 26 July 2015.
