Political Career
Dr. Johnson was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in 1958, for the riding of Gimli, north of Winnipeg. A Progressive Conservative, he was appointed Minister of Health and Public Welfare in the minority government of Dufferin Roblin, who had personally recruited him to run for the party. He retained the health portfolio when the Progressive Conservatives won a majority government in 1959, and oversaw a policy of major hospital expansions in the province and other significant reforms between 1959 and 1963.
On December 9, 1963, Dr. Johnson moved to the Ministry of Education as the government sought to cope with the educational requirements of a rapidly expanding baby-boom population. He held this position until September 24, 1968, and was responsible for, among other achievements, the establishment of the universities of Winnipeg and Brandon, respectively, and the Manitoba Institute of Technology (later 'Red River Community College'), and for introducing the policy of "shared services" for public and separate schools (allowing children in separate schools to access public programs for busing, textbooks and the like). In 1968, Dr. Johnson returned to his old portfolio as Minister of Health, to oversee an historic change in the provision of medical services: the implementation of medicare in Manitoba.
Ideologically, Dr. Johnson was a progressive, often referred to as (somewhat erroneously) a Red Tory with beliefs similar to those held by Premier Roblin. Along with Roblin, he is considered by historians to be the leading political reformer of his generation and among the most influential cabinet ministers in Manitoba history. Although generally a free marketeer, Dr. Johnson supported government intervention in the economy in certain areas, for example, in such areas as public utility management, education, major infrastructure projects and certain medical services. When Roblin shifted to federal politics in 1967, Dr. Johnson was the only candidate from the Progressive Conservative Party's progressive wing to seek its leadership. A late entry into the leadership race hurt his campaign and while he was the alternative choice for leader among many delegates, the fact that Dr. Johnson did not survive to the later balloting prevented him from emerging as the possible compromise choice for party leader among delegates.
Read more about this topic: George Johnson (Manitoba Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words political career, political and/or career:
“No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life’s course by a mere accident.”
—James Bryce (1838–1922)
“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)