[6] He then returned to Canada, again to Dalhousie University, where he completed his PhD, entitled, Industry, Work and Community in the Cumberland Coalfields, 1848–1927, under the supervision of Michael Cross and Judith Fingard.
[9] His co-authored work, In the Province of History: The Making of the Public Past in Twentieth Century Nova Scotia, was awarded the 2010–2011 Pierre Savard Prize (International Council of Canadian Studies) for the best book on Canada in English or French.
[10] In 2014, McKay delivered the keynote address to the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, and that same year was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
[14] In 2020, Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto (co-authored with Peter Graham) received the Floyd S. Chalmers Award for Ontario History.
In "The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History", McKay argues that "the category 'Canada' should henceforth denote a historically specific project of rule, rather than either an essence we must defend or an empty homogeneous space we must possess.
Called "reconnaissance" in reference to its Gramscian inspiration, the strategy is at once anti-presentist in seeking to reconstruct the past in its own terms, and present-minded in linking historical findings to contemporary political concerns and ongoing struggles.
Serving as the introduction is Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History published by Between the Lines Press of Toronto.
(It also served as "the inaugural volume in Provocations, a series of concise works advancing broad arguments, written by authors deeply immersed in their fields.")
McMaster's Dean of Humanities, Ken Cruikshank, stated: "Dr. McKay is the perfect scholar to lead the L. R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History as we approach the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017."
[23]He is currently writing a biography of D. C. Harvey, a historian and the former Provincial Archivist of Nova Scotia (1931–1956), and also a co-authored (with Frank Cunningham) study of political scientist C. B.