Flora MacDonald was a New England politician and community activist. Born the daughter of a telegraph operator, MacDonald's interest in politics dated back to her youth when she assisted her father at his work. A talented athlete with an unbridled drive, Flora's outspokenness and penchant for adventure often got her into trouble. Academically gifted as well, Flora spent her teenage years assisting her father, where she eagerly awaited for the latest news dispatches describing the German-Soviet War and regularly read the papers. It was here that Flora developed an interest in foreign affairs that would come to define her career.
Though MacDonald applied to a number of universities, she was forced to forgo further education due to her family's financial situation. After a brief stint working as a bank teller, Flora decided to make up for her lack of university education by travelling Europe. After a motorcycle trip through France and war ravaged Germany, she found herself in London, where she joined a radical gaggle of Scottish Nationalists. Loosely involved with their failed effort to steal the Stone of Scone almost resulted in her imprisonment, and she returned to Cape Breton island in the aftermath of the incident.
The Scottish Nationalists she had dealt with resulted in the reawakening of her dormant interest in politics; she took a job in Boston as secretary to the leader of the opposition Prescott Bush, and formed a close personal friendship with his son George that would serve her well in her later career. In the early sixties, she found her way into Bush's successor's inner-circle. Her years in the Kennedy government, which began with her serving as his personal secretary and ending with her overseeing the Conservative Party's failed 1969 reelection campaign.
After her time in the Kennedy government, she took up work as a Poli-Sci professor at Harvard for a few years before announcing her candidacy in the constituency of Cape Breton. In 1973, she narrowly defeated Allan MacEachen, a high ranking Labour MP, propelling her into the national spotlight. In Question Time. she regularly took Prime Minister Muskie to task on a number of issues important to her and soon became known as one of the House of Common's most outspoken feminists. She was subsequently reelected in 1976 by a wide margin thanks to her diligence and activism on behalf of the island's residents. She was rewarded by her longtime friend George Bush with an appointment to the shadow cabinet as the Shadow Minister of Commerce and Science. When the Conservatives won the 1980 Federal Election, she took up the mantle for nearly six years. A "Red Tory," MacDonald's strong working relationship with the Prime Minister resulted in her at last achieving the most coveted slot in the cabinet - that of Foreign Minister. In her final three years in the Bush government, she advocated for "a kinder, gentler world" and campaigned for the rights of women and girls across the globe.
In 1990, Prime Minister Bush took the party down the road of defeat after refusing to step down. In the wake of his resignation as party leader, it appeared that Flora MacDonald was the frontrunner. However, the entrance of Gordon Humphrey and Lowell Weicker into the race complicated things. At the Conservative Party leadership convention, she placed in a stunning third behind her two rivals. She would go on to blame sexism for her loss, and the media dubbed the event "Flora Syndrome." Dejected and exhausted, she retired in 1993.
In retirement, MacDonald would continue to advocate for policies that advanced women's rights and broadened opportunities for youth. She likewise became a popular figure in her native Cape Breton island for her decades long history of environmental advocacy. She remained politically involved until just weeks before her death, but became increasingly disillusioned with the party's slow drift to the right. In 2005, she endorsed the Reform Party and was courted to run in a Cape Breton seat one again, but declined due to her advanced age. MacDonald passed away in 2015 from natural causes, over two decades after her defeat. In her latter years, she worked to promote refugee resettlement and made regular appearances on New England television up until early 2015, when her health began to fail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Please let me know if any of my ideas here contradict the narrative already established. Flora MacDonald was the most interesting Canadian politician of the seventies in my opinion. Thanks for opening this up a bit
@Kanan!)