Flora MacDonald was an American academic, activist, politician, and stateswoman who twice served as Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of America, the first female ever to lead a party and subsequently the first woman to ever occupy Octagon House as Prime Minister. Serving on two separate occasions nearly a decade apart, MacDonald's two tenures in office were marked by fierce internal infighting within the Progressive Conservative Party which proceeded it's eventual collapse following the 1993 federal election.
Born in Nova Scotia to the son of a Scottish immigrant, MacDonald's early years were marred by the poverty of the Great Depression, which hit the blighted Maritime province particularly hard. Yet MacDonald was not bound by these circumstances, even if they had a profound impact on her political ideology. Working a variety of odd jobs throughout her college years, MacDonald paid her way through school at Empire Business College before traveling to Europe, where she allegedly was involved in a hairbrained scheme by young Scottish nationalists to steal the Stone of Scold from Westminster Abbey before returning to the Commonwealth of America. Her passion for politics was growing, and MacDonald soon found herself heavily involved in the Progressive Conservative Party's provincial affiliate. Serving as an aide to Robert Stanfield in 1957, MacDonald's efforts and organizational talent landed her a top job on his provincial election campaign, which he ultimately won. MacDonald's efforts earned her the attention of top Tories, and from 1957 through 1962, she served as a secretary and staffer in the office of Prime Minister Harold Stassen. In 1963, she managed Stanfield's unsuccessful campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party, which he ultimately lost to John Diefenbaker. That year, she took a teaching position at Queens University in Kingston before moving on to a administrative role, where she found herself frequently caught between the New Left students and older educators at a time of great tension in the Commonwealth.
In 1968, Nelson Rockefeller led the Tories to an upset victory over Prime Minister Hubert Humphrey, leading to MacDonald being offered the position of Octagon House's Deputy Chief of Staff, the first time a woman was ever invited to take on a senior role within the office of the Prime Minister. A policy wonk with a populist touch, MacDonald was offered the chance to run for office in several by-elections over the course of the Rockefeller years, but declined these early opportunities. In 1973, MacDonald finally agreed to stand for parliament, and was elected over a Liberal incumbent in that year's federal election. With Rockefeller remaining on as party leader until his comeback dreams were dashed in the 1976 federal election, MacDonald enjoyed a meteoric rise within the House of Commons in part due to his patronage. She served as the Shadow Minister of Education and Youth, and was an effective ally of Rockefeller at the dispatch box when debating her counterparts in the Liberal government. When Rockefeller stood down after his defeat in the 1976 election, MacDonald emerged as a leading contender for the Progressive Conservative Party leadership election as the champion of the Red Tories.
Defeating a scattered opposition after several ballots, MacDonald made history as the first woman to lead a major American political party. As leader of the opposition, the feisty red haired Nova Scotia native reinvented herself, emerging as a bread and butter populist who held a detailed knowledge of the challenges facing middle class Americans in the midst of the 1970s recession. In 1979, under growing pressure from a dissatisfied electorate, the Liberal - Democratic coalition government led by Pierre Trudeau crumbled, and another federal election was called. Despite speculation that many voters were uncomfortable with a female Prime Minister, the Tories managed to win back dozens of seats and position themselves as the biggest party in parliament with a plurality. Within days of the election, MacDonald was called to Franklin Hall by the Governor-General and asked to form a government.
Propped up by the Social Credit caucus, the new Progressive Conservative administration was plagued from the onset by infighting. The internal civil war between the Red and Blue Tories escalated as MacDonald, a strident supporter of abortion rights and feminism, moved the party towards the center at a time when the base was moving to the right. MacDonald was also an outspoken federalist, who supported the Commonwealth's cohesiveness throughout her first tenure in office. Leading the successful "No" campaign in the 1980 Quebec referendum, MacDonald's success in keeping Quebec in the Commonwealth sustained her government through a tense period in 1980 when her coalition with the Social Credit Party nearly crumbled. But by 1981, MacDonald's inability to negotiate the patriation of the constitution - a long desired goal of the three major parties - was weighing on her government, and the Social Credit Party saw opportunity to flex their muscles by cracking the coalition over a gasoline tax bill and forcing an election which MacDonald's Progressive Conservatives would go on to lose. She maintained leadership of the party through 1983, when her political capital ran out, and was ousted by a faction of party grandees who installed George Bush as party leader.
But MacDonald was far from defeated; following Bush's 1985 victory over Mondale, MacDonald was offered a number of roles in the cabinet. She declined, remaining a backbencher through 1988, when she was named Foreign Minister at a time when the Contra scandal was threatening to topple Bush's once solid majority government. She was additionally appointed President of the Privy Council in 1991, a role usually reserved for seniors statesmen within the party. By 1993, Bush's luck would run out, and the Progressive Conservative Party was facing electoral annihilation. With a leadership vacuum forming, MacDonald entered the race for the party leadership once again, dispatching challengers Bob Dole, Jean Charest, and Garth Turner to make a stunning return to the Premiership.
