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FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n
In 1980, Sid Green \u2014 seen here with then-premier Ed Schreyer and Howard Pawley \u2014 was an MLA for Inkster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe demonstrated that lawyers have to be willing to stand up and say unpopular things, if that\u2019s what their cause requires,\u201d says Grant Mitchell, whose father, Leon Mitchell, joined forces with Green in 1955 under the partnership Mitchell & Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach (law) students to be respectful, and courteous,\u201d continued Mitchell, who retired in 2016 after his own four-decade legal career, including teaching law at the University of Manitoba. \u201cSid wasn\u2019t those things. It wasn\u2019t to the point of contempt of court, but it was aggressive and it was unrelenting and unapologetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be reminded sometimes that as uncomfortable as it might feel, sometimes you have to express unpopular ideas. Sid demonstrated that\u2026 you should say the right thing, not the popular thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as anyone can tell, Green came by that pugnacious flair naturally. He was born in 1929 to a large working-class family in the North End; as a teen, he helped his father deliver coal. By the time he graduated from Isaac Newton school, he was set on pursuing a legal career, in part because he was so talented at crafting and defending an argument.<\/p>\n
Yet he did not like to argue for the sake of it, his son Marty Green says. For him, it had to be rooted in conviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was electrifying when he would be arguing something, but he never joined the debating society,\u201d Marty says. \u201cHe had no stomach for being given a topic and saying \u2018argue this topic.\u2019 He wouldn\u2019t argue a topic he didn\u2019t believe in, even as a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the University of Manitoba, Green flourished. He was active in Jewish youth sports and community life; in 1954, he played a key role in founding BB Camp at Lake of the Woods. He also played quarterback for the law school\u2019s football team, where he earned the nickname Slingin\u2019 Sid, and led the squad to two school championships.<\/p>\n
Above all, it was while in university that he met his wife, Shleema. The couple wed in 1954; together, they raised five children and were married 54 years until her death in 2009.<\/p>\n
In 1955, he earned his law degree from the University of Manitoba, graduating as the co-recipient of that year\u2019s law school gold medal. Shortly after being called to the bar, Green walked into Leon Mitchell\u2019s office. Mitchell had graduated one year earlier and had started his own practice, though he faced physical limitations after a bout with Guillain-Barre syndrome.<\/p>\n
Green was blunt: \u201cYou need me,\u201d he told Mitchell, explaining he could take on the more physical aspects of legal work.<\/p>\n
Together, Mitchell and Green proved unstoppable. Their firm soon became Manitoba\u2019s pre-eminent labour law practice; some of the cases they took on would secure Canadian labour rights to this day.<\/p>\n
In the early 1960s, inspired in part by Tommy Douglas, Sid joined the nascent NDP and began thinking of a political career of his own. He ran for Parliament in 1962, as what son Marty describes as a \u201csacrificial lamb\u201d for the NDP in what was then seen as an unwinnable seat in Winnipeg South. He outperformed expectations, but finished third.<\/p>\n
After that, Green turned his attention to Winnipeg\u2019s metro council. He won two terms as councillor for the North End, then resigned to make another failed federal run in 1965. One year later, the stars on his political aspirations aligned, when he soared to victory as the NDP candidate for the provincial Inkster riding.<\/p>\n
Green\u2019s arrival in provincial politics would make him both an asset for the NDP and, sometimes, a thorn in its side. In 1968, he launched a bid to challenge Russell Paulley for provincial NDP leadership; this triggered drama within the party, which ultimately recruited then-MP Ed Schreyer to take over the reins.<\/p>\n
(Green detailed his view of that brouhaha in his 2003 memoir, Rise and Fall of a Political Animal.) <\/p>\n
After Schreyer led the NDP to a historic win in 1969, Green became one of the new government\u2019s most public figures. That year, Schreyer appointed his one-time leadership rival Green to cabinet, where he would remain for most of the next 10 years, holding a number of portfolios.<\/p>\n
Even as minister, Green was never one to dutifully follow the party line. In early 1972, he resigned his urban affairs portfolio after splitting with Schreyer over the issue of public funding to private religious schools. Green was vehemently opposed to one cent of tax dollars going to private institutions.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t JAMES HAGGARTY \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n Lawyer and political trailblazer Sid Green, seen here in 1981, died last month at the age of 96.<\/p>\n The rift didn\u2019t last long, and Green returned to cabinet that summer. But that episode, his son Arthur Green says, illustrates something key about his father\u2019s character. On occasion, some have used the word \u201ccontrarian\u201d to describe Sid Green; but it was never the case that he took a position just because it was oppositional.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was utterly unafraid and unwilling even for a moment to consider sacrificing his own conscience when he thought that he was right and the other side was wrong,\u201d Arthur says. \u201cSo in that sense, he was a contrarian, meaning willing to stand up for his own conscience and ideas, no matter what the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n By then, most Manitobans knew Green\u2019s fearless public presence. What they didn\u2019t always see was the grounded family life he and Shleema cultivated at home. In contrast to her husband, Shleema was deeply private; she was also highly intelligent and patient, Sid\u2019s partner in life in politics as well as parenting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he had her on a pedestal,\u201d Arthur says. \u201cShe was also one of his heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n So as Green pursued his political career, he and Shleema filled their home with warm family memories. In 1969, they moved in to a big house on West Gate with an expansive library, including tomes dedicated to Green\u2019s hero, Abraham Lincoln. Soon, the house became \u201csort of an open-door salon,\u201d Arthur recalls, as Green\u2019s friends and associates swung by just to talk.<\/p>\n \u201cThere would be constant political discussion and social discussion, and math and science and literature,\u201d his son says. \u201cIt was a very exciting atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n The family also had a cottage in the Whiteshell which Green had received from a client in lieu of payment. The family would pass many happy summer days there, playing in the water and grilling on an outdoor stove. At night, after the kids had gone to bed, Green would stay up late into the night, listening to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan records.<\/p>\n By the late 1970s, Green\u2019s political views had changed. Once a ferocious lawyer for unions, he\u2019d come to be sharply critical of some protections unions were seeking, as well as other emerging social positions. This put him increasingly at odds with the provincial NDP; in 1979 he resigned from the party and sat as an independent.<\/p>\n In 1981, he co-founded the Progressive Party of Manitoba. When he ran for re-election in Inkster under that banner, he was defeated. Although Green would make several more political runs over the next decade, none was successful.<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t Instead, he returned to private law practice, where he once again became a feared courtroom figure. He never lost his zest for the law; when Green was well into his 80s, Mitchell says, it was still a common sight to see him in the library on the top floor of the Law Courts Building, poring over volumes of case law.<\/p>\n It helped that, in Green\u2019s later years, he stayed physically and socially active. He\u2019d taken up hockey in middle age, and even golfed into his 90s. He also found love again with longtime companion Dwila Burns, and enjoyed watching his family grow to include 15 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n In the end, the impression he left was of what a person can accomplish, with total dedication.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time he talked about a case, he would always be visibly excited no matter what case he was talking about,\u201d Arthur recalls. \u201cHe was always all in, whatever it was.\u201d<\/p>\n melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Melissa Martin Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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Reporter-at-large
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