Alexa McDonough

Alexa Ann McDonough (née Shaw; August 11, 1944 – January 15, 2022) was a Canadian politician who was the first woman to lead a major, recognized political party in Canada, at any level, when she was the leader of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party (NSNDP) from 1980 to 1994. Subsequently, she served as leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 1995 to 2003.

Prior to her political career, McDonough was a social worker in Halifax, Nova Scotia during the 1970s. Originally, she was a Nova Scotia Liberal Party worker and wrote their social-work policy for the 1970 election. By 1974, she grew disenchanted with the Liberal government and joined the NDP. Her first foray into electoral politics as a candidate happened at the end of the 1970s, but was not successful.

In June 1980, there was a major rift between the NSNDP executive, mainly people from Nova Scotia's mainland, and its Cape Breton Island-based legislative caucus over Jeremy Akerman's resignation as leader. The divided party she inherited as the new leader, in November 1980, forced her to deal with a crisis within her legislative caucus. Eventually, she decided to eject Paul MacEwan from both the legislative caucus and the party that December. McDonough won elected office in 1981 and served as a member of the Nova Scotia Legislature until 1995. During those first years, she was the only female Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and had to deal with sexism both in and out of the legislature. Throughout this time, she represented the Halifax Chebucto and Halifax Fairview electoral districts. When she unexpectedly stepped down as the NSNDP's leader in 1994, she was the country's senior incumbent political leader.

She subsequently ran as the underdog candidate for leader of the federal NDP and surprisingly won it after one-round of voting in October 1995. She spent the next two years rebuilding a federal party that lost official party status in the previous election, before running for a seat in the House of Commons. The NDP had a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada during the 1997 election and regained party status in the House. McDonough was elected the Member of Parliament (MP) for the federal electoral district of Halifax in 1997. She was criticized by unions, in particular the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), and progressive party members of trying to move the party to the centre-left with Third Way policies. Her most visible campaign as leader was to help win the freedom of Maher Arar, who was a victim of "extraordinary rendition" during the United States's war on terror at the turn of the 21st century. She stepped down as party leader in 2003 but continued to serve as an MP for two more terms, until 2008, when she retired from politics altogether.

In 2009, she became the interim president of Mount Saint Vincent University and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in December of that year. She suffered from ill-health in her final years, battling both cancer and Alzheimer's disease before dying in 2022.