Manitoba lost one of its most important 20th century Premiers on this date in 2010. Duff Roblin, who served in his province’s top political job between 1958 and 1967, was 92.
A car dealer by trade, Roblin served with distinction in the Second World War before entering provincial politics in 1949 as a Progressive Conservative. He was later elected his party’s leader and in 1958 became Premier. In assuming Manitoba’s most important job, he became the first Tory Premier in 35 years.
A Red Tory, Roblin ran a progressive government and is known for the reforms he sparked in education, healthcare and the construction of much needed provincial infrastructure projects. These included the famed “Duff’s Ditch,” which protects Winnipeg from flooding to this very day.
In 1967 he stood for the federal leadership of the PCs but was defeated. In the late 1970s he was summoned to the Senate on the advice of PM Pierre Trudeau and served there until reaching the mandatory retirement age in 1992. When the Tories took office under Brian Mulroney in 1984, Senator Roblin became Government Leader in the Senate.Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.