Edward Schreyer - Political Career

Political Career

In the Manitoba election of 1958, Schreyer was elected to the Manitoba legislative assembly as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), representing the rural constituency of Brokenhead; being only 22 years old at the time, Schreyer became the youngest person ever elected to that chamber. He held the riding until resigning in 1965 to run successfully for the House of Commons in Ottawa. However, Schreyer returned to provincial politics in 1969, and was on June 8 elected as leader of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba (NDP), the successor to the Manitoba CCF. He differed in a number of respects from the previous leaders of Manitoba's NDP: from a rural background, and not committed to socialism as an ideology, he was able to win the support of many centrist voters who had not previously identified with the party. Also, he was the first leader of the Manitoba CCF/NDP who was not of Anglo-Saxon and Protestant descent.

Schreyer led his party to a watershed electoral victory in the 1969 provincial election and was subsequently appointed by Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba Richard Spink Bowles as his premier, in which position Schreyer served until 1977. The government during his premiership amalgamated the city of Winnipeg with its suburbs, introduced public automobile insurance, and significantly reduced medicare premiums. Following another election in 1973, Schreyer maintained his position as premier, though the council was this time less innovative, the only policy of note being the mining tax legislation implemented in 1974. Besides serving as premier, Schreyer was the appointed Minister of Finance between 1972 and 1975, and the minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro from 1971 to 1977. It was from those positions that Schreyer advised the Lieutenant Governor to authorise construction of hydroelectric works instead of coal and gas burning electricity generators, and also put forward legislation that simultaneously eliminated provincial health care premiums and implemented home care and pharmacare. Schreyer sometimes favoured policies distinct from those of the federal New Democratic Party; in 1970, he supported Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's direction of the Governor General to invoke the War Measures Act in response to the October Crisis in Quebec, despite the opposition of federal NDP leader Tommy Douglas.

In 1977, Schreyer's New Democrats were defeated by the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, under Sterling Lyon. Schreyer remained leader of the NDP in opposition, but resigned from that post in 1979, when he was approached with the offer of serving as the federal viceroy.