The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
In mid-September, the Winnipeg Free Press announced the winner of their Greatest Manitoban contest. The contest was kind of fun. Readers were allowed to vote every day, and believe me, a number of them did. As Sid Green said in a column: ÒThere is nothing objective about the selections for public honours and choices that are made cannot be justified by any mathematical criteriaÉthe choice will be made by that candidate whose supporters can generate the best campaign to get people to vote and to vote often.Ó Sid was sooo right. This writer received an e-mail from an old Tory colleague telling me to vote every day for Duff Roblin to ensure he won. I admit I voted three or four times, even though Duff is a long-time political friend. There were a lot of people on the top 30 list that I could not agree with, including Louis Riel and author Carol Shields Ð substantial people, but not worthy of the title. As we know, Duff Roblin won, so was it a good choice? Absolutely. Duff, now in his 90s, has had an amazing life, from war hero to senator. He was at D-Day in Normandy and survived without a scratch, returning home in 1946. He was elected to the legislature three years later, remaining until he resigned in the late Ô60s to contest the national PC leadership. Duff sought the MP position in Winnipeg South Centre in the 1968 election, but lost. Elected Manitoba premier in 1958 on the coat tails of John Diefenbaker, Roblin is recognized as a leader who got things done for the province. The entire school system was changed, with Stewart McLean as education minister, to get rid of the one-room rural schoolhouse system and combine the hundreds of rural school districts into modern school divisions. DuffÕs government set up a school bussing system and three community colleges, poured money into the universities, and brought back French as a teaching language in public schools, not an entirely popular feature in many areas of the province. There were lots of other progressive things in his administration, including new roads, crop insurance, welfare allowances, development in the North, and better (and more) health care, but he is best known for the Winnipeg Floodway. A year after Duff entered the legislature, Winnipeg was hit by the flood of the century. The Red River flooded thousands of homes, causing massive evacuations and costing at the time $100 million for repairs. The coalition government of the time really did nothing, and certainly nothing to fight off future floods. A couple of reports on the 1950 flood recommended how Winnipeg could be protected, but nothing was done until Roblin went ahead with a floodway. He had a difficult time getting it through the legislature but persevered. The five-year project began in 1962 and cost $63 million. In 1997, the second flood of the century took place and the floodway saved a large part of Winnipeg. Since then, Duff has been recognized as a hero for ÒDuffÕs Ditch.Ó All was not joyous for Roblin, who brought in the hated provincial sales tax in 1967, leaving Alberta as the only sales-tax-free province. This was certainly a factor when he ran for federal office during Trudeaumania. Prior to that, he ran for national leader, with John Diefenbaker still in the race. The Manitoba Tory delegates were badly split, with many of us sticking with ÒThe Chief.Ó This undoubtedly hurt the Manitoban and enabled fellow Premier Robert Stanfield to beat Roblin in the final vote. Stanfield was known as the best prime minister Canada never had, and one wonders how Duff would have done against Trudeau. Roblin ran once more for MP, in Ontario, and lost. He retired to private business until Trudeau appointed him to the Senate in 1978, where he served with distinction for 14 years. At 91 he is mainly retired but is viewed by many as the best former premier in the province. RogerÕs Right Corner runs Wednesdays.
