David MacDonald (politician)
Quick Facts
LeoBiography
David Samuel Horne MacDonald, PC (born August 20, 1936) is a Canadian United Church of Canada minister, former politician, and author.
Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, David MacDonald was ordained in the United Church by the Maritime Conference on June 11, 1961, and was a minister at Alberton, Tignish, and Cascumpec, Prince Edward Island before going into federal politics.
He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from the former Prince Edward Island riding of Prince in the 1965 election, and was re-elected in the realigned Egmont riding from 1968 until 1979.
After the Tory victory in the 1979 election, he was appointed Minister of Communications, Minister responsible for the Status of Women and Secretary of State for Canada in the short-lived Cabinet of Prime Minister Joe Clark.
MacDonald lost his seat to Liberal George Henderson in the 1980 election but returned to the House as MP in the Toronto riding of Rosedale in the 1988 election, replacing former Toronto Mayor and PC incumbent David Crombie.
However, he lost his seat again to a Liberal majority government in the 1993 election, this time to Bill Graham. Two other notable candidates ran against MacDonald in this election: future New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton, and magician Doug Henning for the Natural Law Party of Canada.
MacDonald also spent time in Africa between parliamentary duties.
MacDonald had a reputation as a Red Tory (i.e., left-leaning), and subsequently switched his political allegiance to the social democratic New Democratic Party of Canada. He ran as the NDP candidate in his old riding (now called Toronto Centre-Rosedale) in the 1997 election, but was defeated again by Graham.
MacDonald was romantically involved with time as leader of the federal NDP, Alexa McDonough prior to his 1997 candidacy. However, they split up prior to the 2004 federal election. MacDonald has since started another relationship and married.
On November 25, 1998, The United Church of Canada appointed MacDonald a Special Advisor on residential schools, in light of major lawsuits against the UCC from former students.
Electoral record
Toronto Centre—Rosedale
| Canadian federal election, 1997 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Liberal | Bill Graham | 22,945 | 49.19 | -0.80 | ||||
| New Democratic | David MacDonald | 9,597 | 20.58 | +9.80 | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | Stephen Probyn | 8,993 | 19.28 | -1.96 | ||||
| Reform | John Stewart | 3,646 | 7.82 | -4.65 | ||||
| Green | Jim Harris | 577 | 1.24 | +0.30 | ||||
| Canadian Action | Anthony Robert Pedrette | 303 | 0.65 | |||||
| Natural Law | Ron Parker | 270 | 0.58 | -1.01 | ||||
| Marxist–Leninist | Steve Rutchinski | 166 | 0.36 | +0.25 | ||||
| Independent | Ted W. Culp | 145 | 0.31 | |||||
| Total valid votes | 46,642 | 100.00 | ||||||
Rosedale
| Canadian federal election, 1993: Rosedale | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Bill Graham | 27,707 | 49.98 | – | $54,087 | |||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 12,018 | 21.68 | $60,961 | ||||
| Reform | Daniel Jovkovic | 7,048 | 12.71 | $25,016 | ||||
| New Democratic Party | Jack Layton | 5,937 | 10.71 | $44,872 | ||||
| National | Martin Lanigan | 1,091 | 1.97 | $6,964 | ||||
| Natural Law | Doug Henning | 839 | 1.51 | $37,086 | ||||
| Green | Leslie Hunter | 479 | 0.86 | $380 | ||||
| N/A (Christian Freedom) | Linda Dale Gibbons | 214 | 0.39 | $200 | ||||
| Marxist-Leninist | Steve Rutchinski | 61 | 0.11 | $205 | ||||
| Abolitionist | Y. Patrice d'Audibert-Garcien | 43 | 0.08 | $0 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 55,437 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 491 | |||||||
| Turnout | 55,928 | 61.71 | ||||||
| Electors on the lists | 90,630 | |||||||
| Source: Thirty-fifth General Election, 1993: Official Voting Results, Published by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Financial figures taken from official contributions and expenses provided by Elections Canada. | ||||||||
| Canadian federal election, 1988 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 22,704 | 41.36 | -11.44 | ||||
| Liberal | Bill Graham | 22,624 | 41.21 | +15.08 | ||||
| New Democratic | Doug Wilson | 8,266 | 15.06 | -2.77 | ||||
| Libertarian | Chris Blatchly | 411 | 0.75 | +0.09 | ||||
| Green | Frank de Jong | 397 | 0.72 | -1.15 | ||||
| Rhinoceros | Liane McLarty | 265 | 0.48 | |||||
| Independent | Mike Constable | 102 | 0.19 | |||||
| Independent | Harry Margel | 91 | 0.17 | |||||
| Commonwealth of Canada | Paul Therrien | 33 | 0.06 | -0.27 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 54,893 | 100.00 | ||||||
Egmont
| Canadian federal election, 1980 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Liberal | George Henderson | 8,639 | 52.37 | +12.93 | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 7,033 | 42.63 | -13.44 | ||||
| New Democratic | Vincent Gallant | 824 | 5.00 | +0.51 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 16,496 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Canadian federal election, 1979 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 8,861 | 56.07 | +3.82 | ||||
| Liberal | Bill Reese | 6,233 | 39.44 | -4.81 | ||||
| New Democratic | Vincent Gallant | 710 | 4.49 | +0.98 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 15,804 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Canadian federal election, 1974 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 7,583 | 52.25 | -3.53 | ||||
| Liberal | Bill Reese | 6,422 | 44.25 | +3.97 | ||||
| New Democratic | Cletus Shea | 509 | 3.51 | -0.04 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 14,514 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Canadian federal election, 1972 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ∆% | ||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 7,868 | 55.78 | +2.26 | ||||
| Liberal | George W. Olscamp | 5,681 | 40.28 | -4.02 | ||||
| New Democratic | Carroll L. Kadey | 501 | 3.55 | +1.37 | ||||
| Social Credit | Hugh G. Ryan | 55 | 0.39 | |||||
| Total valid votes | 14,105 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Canadian federal election, 1968 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 7,182 | 53.52 | |||||
| Liberal | J. Melville Campbell | 5,945 | 44.30 | |||||
| New Democratic | Harvey Dawson | 292 | 2.18 | |||||
| Total valid votes | 13,419 | 100.00 | ||||||
Prince
| Canadian federal election, 1965 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | ||||||
| Progressive Conservative | David MacDonald | 9,082 | ||||||
| Liberal | John Watson MacNaught | 8,312 | ||||||
| New Democratic | Harvey Dawson | 384 | ||||||