1. Gordon Churchill served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1946 to 1949 as an independent, and in the House of Commons of Canada from 1951 to 1968 as a Progressive Conservative.
18 Facts About Gordon Churchill
1. 2.
Gordon Churchill served in the cabinet of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
3.
Churchill and Mary Shier, Churchill was educated in Port Arthur, Ontario, at United College in Winnipeg and at the University of Manitoba, where he received a Master of Arts degree and a law degree.
4.
Gordon Churchill worked as a teacher and school principal, and served as president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society.
5.
Gordon Churchill belonged to the law firm of Haig and Haig, which was founded by the family of Conservative politician John Thomas Haig.
6.
Gordon Churchill served overseas in World War I from 1916 to 1919 operating a Vickers Machine Gun.
7.
Gordon Churchill resigned from the Manitoba legislature in 1949 to run for the Canadian House of Commons in the riding of Winnipeg South Centre.
8.
Gordon Churchill was returned by greater margins in the 1953 and 1957 general elections.
9.
Gordon Churchill was a key adviser to Progressive Conservative Party leader John Diefenbaker during this period, and was widely credited with developing the strategy that propelled the Tories to victory in 1957.
10.
Gordon Churchill was appointed to Diefenbaker's cabinet on June 21,1957 as Minister of Trade and Commerce.
11.
The Progressive Conservatives were re-elected with a large majority in the 1958 federal election; Gordon Churchill defeated his nearest opponent in Winnipeg South Centre by almost 20,000 votes.
12.
Gordon Churchill gave approval in 1959 for Canada's first commercial power nuclear reactor, a CANDU design, to be built at Douglas Point, Ontario.
13.
Gordon Churchill served as acting Leader of the Government in the House of Commons from January 14 to September 10,1960, and was confirmed in this position on October 17,1960.
14.
Gordon Churchill had served only two months in this position when the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 1963 federal election; Churchill was personally re-elected with an even smaller majority.
15.
Gordon Churchill served as Opposition House Leader in the Parliament which followed.
16.
Gordon Churchill remained loyal to John Diefenbaker during the Progressive Conservative Party's internal quarrels of the 1960s, and worked for Diefenbaker at the party's 1967 leadership convention.
17.
In February 1968, Gordon Churchill attacked new Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield for not forcing an election when the Liberal government of Lester Pearson was unexpectedly defeated in the house.
18.
Gordon Churchill left the Progressive Conservative caucus on February 27,1968 to sit as an Independent Progressive Conservative, and did not run for re-election in the 1968 campaign.