Alexa McDonough - Provincial Leadership

Provincial Leadership

McDonough's first foray into electoral politics occurred during the 1979 and 1980 federal elections. In both of those elections, she ran unsuccessfully in the federal riding of Halifax. In the 1980 federal election, she lost to former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan, the same politician that she once supported back in 1970. Just after the federal election, Jeremy Akerman stepped down as the Nova Scotia NDP's leader, in the spring of 1980. At this time, there was a growing rift between the Cape Breton Island and Mainland wings of the party. This rift exploded in June, when Paul MacEwan, the NDP MLA for Cape Breton Nova, was expelled from the party due to his constant public airing of internal party disputes, including the implication that Akerman resigned due to "Trotskyist elements" from the mostly mainland-based provincial executive council. To make this situation worse for an incoming leader, the NDP's four MLAs, all from Cape Breton constituencies, voted to keep him in the caucus. MacEwan's expulsion became one of the dominant issues during the leadership race that fall. In late September, Akerman was appointed to a top Nova Scotia civil service job that required him to both resign from the Legislature and terminate his membership in the NDP. James 'Buddy' MacEachern, a leadership candidate, and MLA for Cape Breton Centre, was made the interim leader on October 2.

Despite these internecine battles, and not having a seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, McDonough decided to enter the leadership race. The other candidate in the race to replace Akerman was Len Arsenault, the MLA for the Cape Breton North riding. The leadership convention was convened in Halifax, with the leadership vote held on November 16, 1980. McDonough received 237 votes, compared to Arsenault's 42 votes, and MacEachern's 41 votes, giving her a first ballot landslide victory. As a result of her victory, she became the first woman in Canada to lead a major recognized political party.

Her first order of business was to settle the Paul MacEwan question. On December 9, 1980, she managed to get her former leadership rivals to vote MacEwan out of the caucus and party. Since she did not have a seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, the party was left with just two seats, because MacEwan was now an independent, and Akerman's seat was left vacant due to his resignation. For almost a year, she would sit in the Assembly's visitors gallery until she could run for a seat in the 1981 Nova Scotia general election. McDonough's first provincial election as leader was fought in the Halifax Chebucto riding, where the Liberals and Conservatives were more or less evenly matched in terms of voter support, and the NDP was a distant third in the previous election. She won her seat, the first one for the NDP in Mainland Nova Scotia, but the NDP lost all of its Cape Breton Island seats in the process. She spent the next three years as the only New Democrat, and the only woman in the House of Assembly, where she was the target of sexist attitudes, and personal attacks. She took on the "old boys' network", that permeated within Nova Scotia's politics at the time, by attempting to dismantle the province's entrenched patronage system.

McDonough was personally popular throughout Nova Scotia, consistently being the voters' top choice in leadership polls, but her popularity did not rub-off on the party. She led the party through three more elections, eventually building the caucus up to three members: all from the mainland, including future Nova Scotia NDP leader, Robert Chisholm. After fourteen years as the Nova Scotia NDP leader, which at the time made her the longest-serving leader of a major political party, she stepped down on November 19, 1994. John Holm, the NDP's Sackville-Cobequid MLA, took over as interim leader, until Chisholm was elected leader in 1996.