- MacPolitics: Gloria McCluskey Campaigns To Elect Her Son in Dartmouth – Mike McCluskey On The Ballot
By Andrew Macdonald
For the first time since the 2012 municipal election, a McCluskey is on the ballot for a councillor seat in Dartmouth.
Mike McCluskey is seeking a seat against incumbent Sam Austen in Downtown Dartmouth, District 5.
Mike’s mother is the one and only: Gloria McCluskey, now 93, and last on the ballot in 2012.
The last Mayor of Dartmouth, she left that post after Liberal Premier John Savage in 1996 created the Halifax Regional Municipality, by amalgamating the metro Halifax local governments.
Mike tells me his mother, born in 1932, is manning the phones as he campaigns. At 93, it would be too gruelling for her to also knock on doors.
In an interview with The Notebook, Mike McCluskey tells me at 93 his mother “is still active and smart. She was out (Saturday) at the Alderney Landing Farmer’s Market. She is completely active.”
Dartmouth politico Gloria McCluskey is campaigning to elect her son, Mike McCluskey as District 5 Downtown Dartmouth councillor in the Oct. 19th, 2024 municipal vote.
Gloria continues to host a show on Eastlink about Dartmouth personalities. She did 12 episodes last year and there are plans to continue the cable TV talk show.
Mike and his daughter live with Gloria in a multi-generational household.
“I will tell you I am incredibly lucky to have her knowledge that she has because there is not a single issue or single part of Dartmouth that she does not have an encyclopedia knowledge about,” adds Mike.
What has he learned about Gloria’s political career – who only lost one election between 1984 and 2016?
“Number one thing I learned it is all about the people. Some people will say planning and land by-law use are important issues and they are the big levers that municipal politicians have. That is a big responsibility. But, if you prioritize that over the needs of your constituents, you will suffer. That is the closest level of government to the people, municipal government. That is your transit, your garbage, the condition of your streets, snow clearing, they are the ones closest to the voter,” he explains.
Mike McCluskey says he learned many things from his living legend mom, Gloria McCluskey on how to be an effective politico.
“What she really taught me is to listen but hear people as well. It is very easy for a politician to say, oh I will listen, listen. But as we have seen in so many public hearings they actually don’t hear. The biggest thing she told me was to actually campaign and go knock on doors. So by election day, I will have hit 95 per cent of all the single homes,” adds Mike McCluskey.
He says his mother “is incredible. I have learned so much from her. I know I will get votes just because of my last name. I know my name carries weight. There will be people who have never met me or spoken to me who will vote just because of the McCluskey name. It’s a compliment. They know the job she did in politics and they are counting on me to do the same job. It’s kind of like I am a brand name.”
“I do joke that I have to do a good job as councillor because if my mom ever passes – which I do not think will ever happen – I can imagine the ghost of Gloria chasing me through the halls of my home if I do not do a good job.”
Would-be politicians often seek out an audience with Gloria McCluskey to learn about her stellar political life. Five months ago, before he launched his campaign for District 7/Downtown/Southend, candidate Peter Sonnichsen met with Gloria to ask her advice on his campaign to have a seat on HRM regional council. Sonnichsen met with 100 leaders in metro Halifax about how to be an effective politico, and it is significant one of them he asked for an audience with was Gloria to get her political advice.
Gloria McCluskey is a living politico legend.
Recently, I was in a Casino Taxi – I only patronize Casino drivers because Casino owners Angie & Brian Herman read my Macdonald Notebook, so I like to patronize business owners who support The Notebook.
While in the Casino cab, the driver brought up Gloria McCluskey’s name, and you could tell the cabbie admired McCluskey.
“Gloria McCluskey began her career in municipal politics in the mid to late 1980s. She was first elected alderman for the City of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1985 and held the position until 1992. Serving as Deputy Mayor on the council from 1991 to 1992. McCluskey was elected the 34th and final mayor of the pre-merger City of Dartmouth, serving from 1992 to the amalgamation in 1996,” says her Wiki page.
“She later ran unsuccessfully as the Liberal candidate in the 1998 Nova Scotia general election, losing by 449 votes to NDPer Jerry Pye.”
“In 2004, she rejoined provincial politics representing the riding of Dartmouth Centre for the Halifax Regional Municipality. McCluskey didn’t seek re-election and retired following the 2016 Halifax municipal election,” adds her bio.
In 2023, my Notebook writer Avery Mullen spoke to Gloria, after she was the parade marshal that year for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Here is an encore presentation of that talk and story:
God Love Gloria: Dartmouth’s Last Mayor In Conversation On Irish Roots & Politics
By Avery Mullen – Published in The Macdonald Notebook on March 18th, 2023
When Gloria McCluskey, the last mayor of Dartmouth, became a Halifax Regional councillor in 2004 after six years away from politics, word amongst her new colleagues was, “The Pitbull is coming.”
She earned the nickname by being one of the few women at the time to stand toe-to-toe with established male politicians. Her career in public life started with her becoming the first female property assessor in Nova Scotia in 1972 and eventually led her to the mayor’s office until, in 1996, the province announced it would amalgamate Dartmouth and Halifax.
Perhaps it’s fitting that McCluskey served as the parade marshal for the 2023 Halifax St. Patrick’s Day Parade since she attributes much of her pioneering success in the contentious world of municipal politics to her staunch Irish temperament: “It was my Irish spirit that wouldn’t let them break me.”
She rode in the lead float alongside Old Triangle Irish Alehouse co-owner Brian Doherty, who helped organize the parade before the revellers decamped to The Lower Deck pub in Historic Properties for drinks.
“I was in the front car waving to everybody, wishing them a happy St. Patrick’s day,” she tells The Notebook in an interview. “People were yelling at me.
“And Brian Doherty is such a great Irishman. It was so nice travelling with him.”
McCluskey’s maiden name was McCarthy, of the same Irish family that ruled the kingdom of Munster during the high middle ages and was responsible for the completion of Blarney Castle.
The castle, in turn, is home to the culturally significant Blarney Stone, which is said to bestow on visitors the gift of the gab and has become a popular tourist attraction, even having a traditional folk song named after it.
In 1994, two years after she became mayor, McCluskey visited the ancestral home.
‘Kiss me, I’m Irish’. Gloria McCluskey, right, Dartmouth’s politico spitfire, with Sue Uteck at the 2019 St. Patrick’s Parade. Gloria was the parade marshal at the 2023 parade in downtown Halifax.
“I just loved Ireland,” she says. “It was so beautiful. There are 40 shades of green there.
“As soon as I stepped in Ireland, I felt, ‘I’m home.’”
Beyond her aristocratic forebears, though, McCluskey herself was a trailblazer.
As a property assessor in the 1970s, she oversaw tax assessments in Halifax, managing a larger and more complex operation than her male peers elsewhere in the province. Later, she spent more than 11 years as the only woman on the 15-member Dartmouth City Council.
“It was harder for women back then,” she says. “I remember the first night I went to an appraisal meeting (as a property assessor). It was all men, and one man made a remark about women being there.
“He said he couldn’t go to the WA — that’s the Women’s Auxiliary — and I said, ‘I don’t know why not. Bring your knitting.’”
McCluskey won her last-ever election as a city councillor in 2016, receiving more votes than each of her six challengers combined in the Dartmouth Centre. She retired at the end of that term citing her age.
Now 93, she says that — while she suspects she could win another election, based on the tenor of her recent interactions with the public — she now steers clear of politics out of concern that if her health issues were to worsen, they could interfere with her work.
“I could have gotten elected at 85, but I’d had open heart surgery in 2007, and I thought maybe my valve would start leaking and I’d have to quit,” says McCluskey. “And then they’d have to hold a byelection, and that would cost $270,000. I wouldn’t do that to the taxpayers.”
Asked who she believes should be the next mayor of Halifax, with incumbent Mike Savage mulling stepping down when his term ends in 2024, her response is succinct: “Not Waye Mason,” she said in a 2023 talk with The Notebook.
“In the parade — and this is a parade that runs through (Waye Mason’s) district — they had the HRM float there, and there was not one councillor,” says McCluskey. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade ran along Lower Water Street in downtown Halifax, and Mason represented it at the council.
“I was on the talk shows saying, ‘We know Mason can’t take the heat, but he doesn’t like the cold either.’”
In general, McCluskey is critical of Halifax’s current government and views Mason as having a disproportionate degree of influence on the mayor’s office. She also describes a level of homogeneity among councillors’ votes on many issues that she says were not present during her time in office.
“I think we need a good strong mayor,” she says. “I think we need a strong mayor and a council who runs for the right reason of working for their constituency.”
In tomorrow’s Notebook on Wednesday, Mike McCluskey discusses why he thinks all current HRM regional councils should be fired by the voters. He will also tomorrow address the issues in District 5, where he is a candidate for councillor in the Downtown Dartmouth riding.
Mike McCluskey wants to become a second-generation HRM regional councillor. He says he has learned many things from his living legend mother on how to be an effective politico. He says it is all about listening and hearing from ‘The People’.
