Flora MacDonald - Flora!: A Woman in a Mans World

She was a dear friend, a remarkable politician, and a compassionate humanitarian. Many of us benefitted from her counsel, and our communities and our world have been enriched by her compassion.

David Johnston, former governor general of Canada

[Flora MacDonald was] a great Canadian whose leadership and compassion will be sorely missed.

Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada

For a single woman from North Sydney to accomplish what she did in the highly competitive male-oriented world in those days is remarkable and she did it on her own.

Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada

Flora was a contagious example of how much good an active, committed individual can accomplish and inspire.

Joe Clark, former prime minister of Canada

Flora was the real McCoy warm, spontaneous, and gutsy. She loved the world in all its diversity, and yet strived to make it more just. She was a gem.

Ed Broadbent, former leader of the New Democratic Party

Canada has lost a great humanitarian, exemplary parliamentarian, and wonderful leader.

Elizabeth May, former leader of the Green Party

[Flora] demonstrated that any career was possible even for a girl from Whitney Pier. She cleared our path and I am grateful.

Lisa Raitt, former deputy leader of the opposition

Flora was the true, essential trailblazer for the women of her era.

Senator Donna Dasko, co-founder of Equal Voice

Fighting for justice and fairness were her vocation. She would work for the rights of every person who had been denied them, whether they be in small town Canada or in war zones around our troubled world.

Maureen McTeer, Ottawa Citizen

Flora was inspirational, a force of nature, one of those people who changed the course of history.

Daniel Taylor, founder of Future Generations International

Minister MacDonald was instrumental in saving tens of thousands of South Vietnamese by developing a federal matching program to sponsor and rescue boat people from inhumane refugee camps. We are forever grateful.

Phat Nguyen, president, Toronto Vietnamese Association

Flora [MacDonald] travelled to Bamyan many times at great personal risk to develop schools for girls, and promote womens local leadership Her efforts are the embodiment of Canadas commitment to the rights of women and girls.

Statement from the Embassy of Canada to Afghanistan

When it came to doing Gods work on earth, Flora walked the talk.

Senator (retired) Lowell Murray

The 1979 Progressive Conservative Cabinet at Rideau Hall Canadas youngest prime minister (Joe Clark), first Black minister (Lincoln Alexander), first female foreign minister (Flora MacDonald).

From left, front row: John C. Crosbie, Erik Nielsen, Flora MacDonald, Martial Asselin, Joe Clark, Governor General Edward Schreyer, Jacques Flynn, Walter Baker, James A. McGrath, Allan F. Lawrence, David S.H. MacDonald
Back row: Ronald Huntington, Ronald Atkey, Jacob Epp, John A. Fraser, John Wise,W. Heward Grafftey, J. Robert Howie, Roch La Salle, Lincoln Alexander, Donald Mazankowski, Steven Paproski, William Jarvis, Allan McKinnon, Elmer MacKay, Perrin Beatty, Sinclair Stevens, Robert de Cotret, David Crombie, Ramon Hnatyshyn, Michael H. Wilson. Library and Archives Canada/Ted Grant fonds/e010764784. Credit: Ted Grant.

A Woman in a Mans World

FLORA MACDONALD AND GEOFFREY STEVENS

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

Estate of Flora MacDonald and Geoffrey Stevens 2021

ISBN 978-0-2280-0862-0 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0900-9 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0989-4 (ePUB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2021

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Flora! : a woman in a mans world / Flora MacDonald and Geoffrey Stevens.

Names: MacDonald, Flora, 19262015, author. | Stevens, Geoffrey, 1940 author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210226757 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210226935 | ISBN 9780228008620 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780228009009 (PDF) | ISBN 9780228009894 (ePUB)

Subjects: LCSH: MacDonald, Flora, 1926-2015. | LCSH: Women politiciansCanadaBiography. | LCSH: PoliticiansCanadaBiography. | LCSH:Women legislatorsCanadaBiography. | LCSH: LegislatorsCanadaBiography. | LCSH: Women human rights workersCanadaBiography. | LCSH: Human rights workersCanadaBiography. | LCSH: CanadaPolitics and government20th century. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC FC626.M32 A3 2021 | DDC 971.064/4092dc23

This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

For my father Fred MacDonald who taught me that girls are as good as boys and, given opportunity, there is nothing a woman cannot accomplish in a world controlled by men. F.M.

For my wife Lin Clarkson Stevens who lived through the telling of this tale, but not long enough to see it published. G.S.

Flora Isabel MacDonald adventurer, politician, humanitarian known across Canada and beyond simply as Flora, died on 26 July 2015 at the age of eighty-nine.

Hers was an amazing ride. It was a journey that took Flora from secretarial school in Cape Breton to the inner sanctum of the Tory party in Ottawa, to the federal cabinet as Canadas minister of Foreign Affairs, to Mount Everest (which she attempted climb when she was sixty-eight), and, ultimately, to personal fulfillment as an unpaid volunteer teaching life skills to impoverished villagers in the mountain valleys of Afghanistan. It was a journey driven by Floras lifelong conviction that girls are as good as boys, and, given opportunity, there is nothing a woman cannot achieve in a world controlled by men.

She inspired a generation of Canadian women by pursuing that conviction in everything she did whether it was carving a path for women in the House of Commons, running for the leadership of her party, exposing the inhumane treatment of inmates at Kingstons notorious Prison for Women, working with AIDS victims and survivors in Africa, or calling the Soviet Union to account at the United Nations over its backstage role in causing the refugee crisis in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War. (She was undaunted when the Soviet delegation walked to protest her speech or when the UN secretary general reprimanded her for causing such a fuss.)

Flora was daring, says political scientist John Meisel, her friend and mentor at Queens University. She tackled things other people didnt have the guts to try. The American humanitarian Daniel Taylor called her a force of nature, one of those people who changed the course of history. Her friend and cabinet colleague Lowell Murray put it this way: When it came to doing Gods work on earth, Flora walked the talk. Not everyone agreed. Her nemesis John Diefenbaker dismissed her as the finest woman to ever walk the streets of Kingston. But if the old Chief thought the insult would devastate her, he did not know Flora. She was delighted and amused, and she used the line to warm up crowds in her election campaigns in Kingston and The Islands.