Flora MacDonald (politician)
Flora Isabel MacDonald, PC, CC, O.Ont, ONS ( born June 3, 1926 in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada) is a former Canadian politician.
Biography
After school, she was an employee of Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC) and was first secretary at the party headquarters before they soon afterwards as Executive Director in charge of the operational center of the party. In 1965, she stood on the side of the opponents of the party leader and former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and was dismissed for the reason of this in 1966.
In the elections of 1972, she was elected for the first time even to members of the lower house (House of Commons ) and represented the constituency where Kingston and the Islands. MacDonald, who has been dealing with issues of foreign policy, 1972 was also the first female graduate of the National Defence Academy ( National Defence College ).
Following the resignation of Robert Stanfield they ran in February 1976 for the office of Chairman of the PC and led the eve of the party conference as a populist, in which they asked their followers, among other reasons, to support them each a dollar. After their defeat in the second round then asked their followers to support Joe Clark, who was then elected in the third ballot the chairman of the PC.
After Clark after the general election in 1979, Prime Minister of a minority government in May, she was from Clark to Secretary of State ( Secretary of State for External Affairs ) and thus particularly the first woman to a cabinet post of this importance. They proved to be very suitable for this office and was praised by other delegates in particular because of their consistent occurrence of the government of Vietnam during the International Meeting on the issue of Vietnam refugees ( boat people ) in Geneva in July 1979.
When Clark suffered a defeat in the early general election in February 1980, she resigned from the cabinet after 1979 became Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of the Liberal Party of Canada on March 3.
After the electoral victory of the PC in the 1984 elections she was appointed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in September 1984, first as Minister of Labour and Immigration (Minister of Employment and Immigration ) in his cabinet. As part of a reshuffle they took over in June 1986, the Office of the Minister of Communications (Minister of Communications ) appointed and held this post until December 1988.
In 1988 she lost her mandate at the general election and retired from politics, but was temporarily President of the World Federalists (WFM ) of Canada and other organizations.
For her achievements, she was awarded the Order of Canada in 1993 and 1999, the dignity of a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1999 she was also awarded the Pearson Peace Medal, which is awarded annually by the United Nations Association in Canada. In 2003 she received an honorary doctorate from the Saint Mary's University, Halifax.