Career
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. 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 Member of Parliament in the Toronto riding of Rosedale in the 1988 election, replacing former Toronto Mayor and Personal Computer 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 (ie, 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. Toronto Centre—Rosedale
Rosedale
Egmont
Prince.