On election night, official results showed that he had received the same number of votes as Liberal Party leader Izzy Asper.
Herb Schulz's memoirs indicate that MacKay would have been appointed as Justice Minister in Edward Schreyer's government, had he been elected.
MacKay was a founding member of the Progressive Party, which was created by former NDP cabinet minister Sidney Green in 1981.
[3] In 1996, he argued that Manitoba should abandon the Rand formula of mandatory dues collection and allow workers to opt out of union membership.
[6] MacKay debated former political rival Al Mackling in a series of letters to the editor in 2006, on the subject of collective bargaining.