Rise and Fall of a Political Animal: A Memoir

Paul G. Thomas is the Duff Roblin Professor of Government at the
University of Manitoba, the author of Parliamentary Reform Through
Political Parties, and the co-author of Canadian Public Administration:
Problematical Perspectives.

One of the most intelligent, principled, argumentative, and
uncompromising politicians in recent Manitoba history was Sidney Green.
A lawyer by profession, he was first elected to the Manitoba legislature
in 1966, and following the surprising 1969 victory of the New Democratic
Party under Edward Schreyer, briefly became Health Minister and then
Minister of Natural Resources. A couple of times he tried unsuccessfully
for the party leadership. Green was a fierce political fighter: many of
his toughest battles were with his colleagues in the NDP, whom he
accused of breaking with party policy or adopting wrong-headed policies.


This memoir might have been entitled “Never at a Loss for an
Opinion,” because on most of the major political issues of the 1970s
Green claims to have been right. In a no-holds-barred fashion, he covers
the creation of public automobile insurance, aid to private schools,
government bailouts of failing companies, northern economic development,
and reform to the labour laws. This last issue was the breaking point
for Green, who, in the company of two other NDP legislators, left the
party in December 1979 and eventually formed a new party called the
Progressives. His attempt to provide a new voice on the Manitoba
political scene failed—an ironic outcome for a controversial
politician who insists near the outset of this readable book that his
primary goal was to hold power.