Flora MacDonald (1926 – 2015)

Flora Isabel MacDonald was a federal politician, humanitarian and feminist. She was Canada’s first woman foreign minister and one of the first women in Canada to seek the leadership of a major political party. Born and raised in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, MacDonald initially trained as a secretary. She used her earnings to finance a hitchhiking trip to the U.K. and Europe in 1950, and upon her return, worked on Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party leader Robert Stanfield’s victorious election campaign. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, she held a number of positions within the federal Progressive Conservative Party, including serving as John Diefenbaker’s secretary during his tenure as prime minister. MacDonald went on to work for the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University and was first elected to the House of Commons in 1972. She served as the Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands until her defeat in 1988. In her later years, MacDonald distinguished herself as an advocate for social justice and democratic reform.

“Because women do not perceive of themselves in the role of the leader, therefore they find it difficult to perceive of another woman in the role of a leader. The more that that position is tried for by women, the more it explodes that myth.”