Examining the political life of Peter Mackay
FORMER MINISTER FINDS HIMSELF IN THICK OF TALK OVER CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP — AGAIN
To examine the political life of Peter Mackay is to take a magnifying glass to the scaly underbelly of political ambition and all the intrigue that goes along with it. While it’s true that Mackay has chased leadership opportunities throughout his two-decade political career, it’s equally true that they have chased him in return. And paradoxically, after winning the only leadership race that he actually took part in, Mackay immediately gave up the job to merge Canada’s two conservative parties.
Now, after some blunt comments about Andrew Scheer’s campaign performance, Mackay is once again being linked with the leadership of the federal Conservative party.
At a post-election panel discussion on Wednesday, Mackay said that Scheer’s social conservative views were a “stinking albatross” around the party’s electoral hopes and that the scandal-plagued Justin Trudeau had presented the Conservatives with an “open net” they failed to score on.
Mackay quickly clarified his comments, saying he wasn’t trashing Scheer but simply talking frankly about issues the party must address for the next election. But many of Mackay’s critics and supporters see his comments as an opening salvo in a movement to replace Scheer as leader.
It won’t be a new sensation for Mackay, who has been accused of leadership ambitions since his first year in politics.
His political heritage has also helped him. His father, Elmer, was MP for Central Nova from 1971 until relinquishing it in 1983 for the newly-elected Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney. Elmer Mackay was back a year later when Mulroney won a Quebec seat.
Peter Mackay was first elected in 1997 as a Progressive Conservative MP in rural Nova Scotia, in a campaign that saw Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien maintain a slim majority government. Preston Manning’s Reform party was the official opposition and Jean Charest had made modest gains on the PC seat count, giving the party 18 MPS in the House.
As the PCS embarked on a mission to replace Charest as leader in 1998, the 32-year-old Mackay was already being bandied about as a possibility, even as a rookie MP.
The National Post placed him on a list of seven leadership hopefuls, which also included the 38-year-old Stephen Harper and eventual leader Joe Clark. Although he was in elite company, the youthful Mackay’s biggest knock was that “he may not yet be seen to have had enough life experience.”
Mackay declined to run in the federal PC race, saying he had too much to learn, but it wasn’t long before another opportunity was knocking.
A group of Nova Scotia MLAS who were disgruntled with Tory Premier John Hamm approached Mackay in 1999 to gauge his interest in taking the job. Mackay immediately told Hamm about the coup plot and issued a statement supporting his leadership. For Mackay, it amounted to a no-risk opportunity to look like a loyal soldier while making it public that he was a hot commodity.
As Clark’s leadership of the PC party trundled to an end in 2003, Mackay’s youthfulness, in tandem with a few more years of experience in the House, became an asset.
Running against Jim Prentice, who would go on to become a respected cabinet minister and premier of Alberta, and longtime rival Scott Brison, who would soon join the Liberals, Mackay won the leadership on the fourth ballot.
Complicating matters was the deal that Mackay had made with leadership rival David Orchard for his support. The “Orchard agreement” was kept secret initially, but it was soon public knowledge that Mackay had agreed to steer clear of a merger with Harper’s Canadian Alliance.
The agreement was made at the leadership convention in May 2003 and, by the end of that year, Mackay had broken the pledge. With widespread polling showing a united right would put Prime Minister Paul Martin in electoral peril and a strong desire among conservatives across the country to put their differences behind them, the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party voted overwhelmingly to join forces.
Mackay declined to run for the leadership of the new Conservative party and was appointed deputy leader by Harper when he won the leadership on the first ballot.
After Harper won a minority government in 2006, Mackay held a high-profile cabinet position until he left office in 2015, first as minister of foreign affairs, then defence minister and finally as justice minister.
When the Conservatives were defeated in 2015 and Harper resigned as leader, Mackay again declined to run for leadership of the party, instead becoming a partner in the Baker Mckenzie law firm in Toronto.
Whether or not Mackay is manoeuvring for the leadership of the party, it is a remarkable feature of his political career that he has been credibly attached to every single leadership race since elected to Parliament.
And Mackay learned at least one thing watching the abortive attempt to replace Hamm as premier in 1999. “If I know anything in my short political career, it’s that timing is critical,’’ Mackay told the National Post at the time.