Memorable Manitobans: Stanley Carl “Stan” Roberts (1927-1990)

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Stanley Carl Roberts
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Farmer, MLA (1958-1959), MLA (1959-1962).

Born at St. Boniface on 17 January 1927, son of Carl Andrew Roberts (c1895-1980) and Olive Pearl Swanton (?-1988), he received a BSc degree from the University of Manitoba and farmed in southern Manitoba from 1954 to 1970.

In 1958, he was elected to the Manitoba Legislature for the La Verendrye constituency, being re-elected in 1959. He resigned in May 1962 to contest the 1962 and 1963 federal general elections in the riding of Provencher but was defeated each time. He subsequently worked as a Manitoba advisor to federal prime minister Lester Pearson and, from 1969 to 1970, was President and Acting Leader of the Liberal Party of Manitoba. He also worked as a sales manager for the McCabe Grain Company.

He moved to British Columbia in 1971 where he was Vice-President of Simon Fraser University. He stepped down from the position in 1977 to become the first President of the Canada West Foundation, in which capacity he argued for the position of the west in the national constitutional debates. He resigned from that position in 1980 to become President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He also served as a director of Atlas-Gest Inc., Dome Canada Limited, Frontier College, and the North-South Institute.

He ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the British Columbia Liberal Party in 1984, and later that year ran unsuccessfully for the federal Liberal party in a Quebec constituency. He became active in the founding of the Reform Party of Canada but broke with it over ideological differences.

He and wife Margaret Pia had three daughters and two sons.

He died at Vancouver, British Columbia on 31 August 1990.

Sources:

Obituary [Carl Roberts], Winnipeg Free Press, 10 January 1980, page 54.

Obituary [Olive Roberts], Winnipeg Free Press, 11 January 1988, page 26.

Death registration, British Columbia Vital Statistics.

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 7 September 1990, page 20.

Stan Roberts, Wikipedia.

Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.

We thank Oliver Bernuetz (Legislative Library of Manitoba) for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 27 June 2022

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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