Donald C. MacDonald
Encyclopedia
Donald Cameron MacDonald, CM
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

, O.Ont
Order of Ontario
The Order of Ontario is the most prestigious official honour in the Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier David Peterson, the civilian order is administered by the Governor-in-Council and is intended to...

 (December 7, 1913 – March 8, 2008) was a long time Canadian politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and political party leader and had been referred to as the "Best premier
Premier of Ontario
The Premier of Ontario is the first Minister of the Crown for the Canadian province of Ontario. The Premier is appointed as the province's head of government by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and presides over the Executive council, or Cabinet. The Executive Council Act The Premier of Ontario...

 Ontario never had." He represented the provincial riding of York South
York South
York South was an electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1979, and in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1926 to 1999....

 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...

 from 1955 to 1982. From 1953 to 1970 he was the leader of the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section)
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section)
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – The Farmer-Labor Party of Ontario, or more informally and commonly known as The Ontario CCF, was a democratic socialist political party that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the provincial wing of the National CCF. The party officially had no leader in...

 and its successor, the New Democratic Party of Ontario.

Early life and career

MacDonald was born in Cranbrook
Cranbrook, British Columbia
Cranbrook, British Columbia is a city in southeast British Columbia, located on the west side of the Kootenay River at its confluence with the St. Mary's River, It is the largest urban centre in the region known as the East Kootenay. As of 2006, Cranbrook's population is 18,267, and the...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, and moved with his family to Tullochgorum, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 in 1923 and then earned a bachelor's and master's degree from Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...

.
He supported the Conservative Party of Canada
Conservative Party of Canada (historical)
The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...

 in his youth, but became a democratic socialist after witnessing the social problems of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. He worked for several years as a teacher and journalist, and was employed by the Montreal Gazette in the mid-1930s.

Armed forces service

MacDonald joined the Royal Canadian Navy
Royal Canadian Navy
The history of the Royal Canadian Navy goes back to 1910, when the naval force was created as the Naval Service of Canada and renamed a year later by King George V. The Royal Canadian Navy is one of the three environmental commands of the Canadian Forces...

 in 1942, and served in Canada during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 as secretary of a top-secret intelligence committee, the main responsibility of which was to transmit enemy submarine positions to the Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
The history of the Royal Canadian Air Force begins in 1920, when the air force was created as the Canadian Air Force . In 1924 the CAF was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force and granted royal sanction by King George V. The RCAF existed as an independent service until 1968...

. He later became editor of Canadian Digest, a magazine published by the military that provided a cross section of articles from Canadian periodicals and newspapers, and was the host of Serviceman's Forum, a regular series of broadcasts on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

 that were also aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

. Members of the military and civilian experts discussed issues of concern in these broadcasts.

CCF involvement

MacDonald joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

 (CCF) while serving in Ottawa, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 in 1942. In 1946, he joined the national CCF staff and travelled the country as a party organizer
Party organizer
A party organizer or local party organizer is a position in some political parties in charge of the establishing a party organization in a certain locality.Herbert Ames wrote in his 1911 article "Organization of Political Parties in Canada" :...

. He was a candidate in the August 1953 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1953
The Canadian federal election of 1953 was held on August 10 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 22nd Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Louis St...

 for the British Columbia riding of Kootenay East
Kootenay East
Kootenay East was a federal electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1968 and from 1979 to 1997....

, and finished a strong third against Liberal
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 Jim Byrne with 28% of the vote. He was persuaded to run for the Ontario CCF leadership later in the same year, and defeated Fred Young and Andrew Brewin
Andrew Brewin
Francis Andrew Brewin was a lawyer and Canadian politician.Brewin was a stalwart in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and ran numerous times at the federal and provincial levels in the 1940 and 1950s...

 for the position.

Leading the party

MacDonald took over the party in the middle of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 and at the height of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

, when socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 was viewed with suspicion. The CCF had almost won power in Ontario ten years earlier, winning 34 seats in the 1943 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1943
The Ontario general election of 1943 was held on August 4, 1943, to elect the 90 Members of the 21st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, but by the time MacDonald became leader it held only two seats in the legislature. MacDonald was himself without a seat until the 1955 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1955
The Ontario general election of 1955 was held on June 9, 1955, to elect the 98 members of the 25th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, when he defeated Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...

 incumbent William Beech by 1,426 votes in York South
York South
York South was an electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1979, and in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1926 to 1999....

. His victory increased the CCF's legislative standing to three seats, and MacDonald quickly became known as one of the most vocal members of the legislature. He fought for issues such as prison reform
Prison reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...

 and universal public healthcare, and emphasised pragmatism over doctrinaire socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 as he tried to appeal to voters as a moderate reformer. Some Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 newspapers described him as the de facto opposition leader against Leslie Frost
Leslie Frost
Leslie Miscampbell Frost, was a politician in Ontario, Canada, who served as the 16th Premier from May 4, 1949 to November 8, 1961. Due to his lengthy tenure, he gained the nickname "Old Man Ontario".-Early years:...

's Progressive Conservative government. His pursuit of the Northern Ontario Natural Gas
Northern Ontario Natural Gas
Northern Ontario Natural Gas was a natural gas company in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s, which was involved in a stock trading scandal that implicated Supreme Court of Ontario judge Leo Landreville and three members of Premier Leslie Frost's cabinet....

 scandal led to the resignation of three members of Frost's cabinet.

MacDonald slowly rebuilt the party during his tenure as leader, and provided it with a benevolent public face. The CCF grew to five seats in the 1959 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1959
The Ontario general election of 1959 was held on June 11, 1959, to elect the 98 members of the 26th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

. Following the founding of the federal New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

 in 1961, he was acclaimed as the first leader of the Ontario NDP in October 1961. The new party won seven seats in the 1963 election
Ontario general election, 1963
The Ontario general election of 1963 was held on September 25, 1963, to elect the 108 members of the 27th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, and MacDonald later expressed disappointment that a larger breakthrough did not occur.

As the province's population became more urban and as social issues came to the forefront of political discussion, the NDP had a major breakthrough in the 1967 election
Ontario general election, 1967
The Ontario general election of 1967 was held on October 17, 1967, to elect the 117 members of the 28th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 rising from seven seats to 20. This new success led to increasing pressure for new leadership, as the party was seen as a potential victor and many activists felt a younger leader was needed to catch the mood of the times. Jim Renwick
James Alexander Renwick
James Alexander Renwick was a Canadian politician. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1964 until his death....

 challenged MacDonald for the party leadership in 1968, but lost. In 1970, Stephen Lewis
Stephen Lewis
Stephen Henry Lewis, is a Canadian politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of the those years as leader, his father David Lewis was simultaneously the leader of the Federal New Democratic Party...

 was able to marshall support among the Steelworkers union with which his family had strong links. (His father, David Lewis
David Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...

, had represented the steelworkers
United Steelworkers
The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union is the largest industrial labor union in North America, with 705,000 members. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, U.S., the United Steelworkers represents workers in the United...

 as a labour lawyer for many years.) MacDonald decided not to seek re-election as leader in order to avoid a divisive fight. At the leadership convention
Leadership convention
In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.- Overview :...

 that fall, Stephen Lewis defeated Walter Pitman
Walter Pitman
Walter George Pitman, OC, O.Ont is an educator and former politician in Ontario, Canada.Born in Toronto, Ontario, he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1952 and a Master of Arts in 1954 from the University of Toronto....

 and succeeded MacDonald as Ontario NDP leader.

1970 stepping away from leadership

MacDonald was officially neutral in the 1970 leadership contest, but tacitly favoured Pitman. In his autobiography, MacDonald notes that he was initially skeptical about the younger Lewis's leadership abilities, and believed that his election "fitted conveniently into the Tory plans" for the next election. The Progressive Conservative government was able to rally business support by depicting Lewis as dangerously left-wing, and the NDP did not gain seats in the 1971 election
Ontario general election, 1971
The Ontario general election of 1971 was held on October 21, 1971, to elect the 117 members of the 29th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

. MacDonald has also argued that the party's breakthrough under Lewis in the 1975 election
Ontario general election, 1975
The Ontario general election of 1975 was held on September 18, 1975, to elect the 125 members of the 30th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

 was made possible by Lewis's decision to moderate his more strident views.

At the federal level, MacDonald attended the 1971 NDP Federal Leadership Convention and ran for party president. The 1960s youth-quake was moving into federal politics, and a group of New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...

 academics and activists called The Waffle
The Waffle
The Waffle was a radical wing of Canada's New Democratic Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It later transformed into an independent political party, with little electoral success before it permanently disbanded in the mid-1970s...

 presented the fiercest opposition to MacDonald and other "establishment" members. He was up against Carol Gudmundson — of the Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....

, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 Waffle — in the battle for the party presidency. With the help of the union delegations, and the party's establishment, MacDonald was victorious on April 23, 1971 and became the president during the same convention that saw Tommy Douglas
Tommy Douglas
Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician...

 pass the leadership torch on to David Lewis. He got 885 votes to Gudmundson's 565, and started the trend that day that saw Waffle candidates getting defeated at almost every federal council and executive position.

Retiring from York South and beyond

MacDonald supported Ian Deans
Ian Deans
Ian Deans is a Canadian politician.Born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, Deans moved to Canada as a youth and found work as a firefighter...

's unsuccessful bid to replace Lewis as party leader in 1978, and helped to draft Bob Rae
Bob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....

 for the leadership in 1982. He then resigned as an MPP in 1982, to give Rae an opportunity to enter the legislature. MacDonald served as chair of the NDP caucus from 1982 to 1985, and was chair of the Ontario Election Finances Commission from 1986 to 1994.

MacDonald's autobiography, Happy Warrior: Political Memoirs, was published in 1988 and the second edition in 1998, to add the Rae years as the first NDP Ontario government.

He became a Member of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 in 2003 and also holds an Order of Ontario
Order of Ontario
The Order of Ontario is the most prestigious official honour in the Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier David Peterson, the civilian order is administered by the Governor-in-Council and is intended to...

.

Paul Ferreira

By the early 2000s, the NDP was near the bottom of their decline in MacDonald's home riding. The riding's name was changed to York South—Weston
York South—Weston
York South—Weston is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1979.-Electoral district:It is in the west-end of Toronto. The riding has a largely working class and immigrant population...

 for the 1999 provincial election and it became a much larger riding than it was when he represented it. In 2004, MacDonald supported a young NDP Provincial Executive member, named Paul Ferreira
Paul Ferreira
Paul Ferreira is a Canadian social democratic politician and one of the first openly gay politicians elected to provincial office in Canada. He also has the distinction of being the very first Azorean-Canadian MPP...

, in his campaign to be the area's Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP). Ferreira would raise the NDP's vote substantially from 3.7% to over 21%. Not good enough for a win, but it allowed him to eventually, after four elections in two and half years, win the area's seat in the provincial legislature on February 8, 2007
Ontario provincial by-elections, 2007
By-elections were held on February 8, 2007, in Ontario, Canada, to fill three vacancies in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. By-elections were held in three electoral districts : Burlington, Markham and York South–Weston....

. Donald MacDonald supported him through all these campaigns and was there to publicly congratulate Ferreira and pass on the generational torch at the victory party.

Death

MacDonald died of heart failure at Mount Sinai Hospital
Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto)
Mount Sinai Hospital is a hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Although it is physically linked by bridges and tunnels to two University Health Network hospitals , Mount Sinai is an independently operated facility...

 in Toronto at the age of 94.

External links

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