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Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not attend the funeral of former external affairs minister Flora MacDonald, a pioneering political figure credited with leading the advance of women in modern Canadian conservative politics.

Harper hasn’t offered MacDonald’s family a state funeral, a special privilege he extended to former finance minister Jim Flaherty’s family when Flaherty died suddenly of a heart attack last year.

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Instead, Status of Women Minister Kellie Leitch will represent the government at the service on Sunday — the day, according to a CBC report circulating Wednesday, that Harper will ask the governor general to dissolve parliament and kick off the federal election campaign.

MacDonald’s death last weekend in Ottawa at age 89 prompted an outpouring of plaudits for a long career that saw her become the first woman to run for the leadership of Progressive Conservatives and the first female foreign minister in the developed world.