Roger Teillet

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Roger Teillet

Roger-Joseph Teillet, PC (August 21, 1912 – June 1, 2002) was a Canadian politician. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal-Progressive from 1953 to 1959, and in the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal from 1962 to 1968. Teillet was a cabinet minister in the governments of Lester Pearson and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

[edit] Early life

Born in St. Vital, Manitoba, Teillet was a direct descendant of Marie-Anne Gaboury and Jean-Baptiste Lagimodiere, the grandparents of Louis Riel. He was the grandson of Joseph Riel, Louis' younger brother.

He was educated in St. Boniface schools and at St. Boniface College. He later continued his studies in Europe through the International Students organization.

Teillet was a flight Lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Air Force and a navigator for the Halifax bombers in World War II. He conducted twenty-four successful bombing missions over Germany before his plane was shot down in 1942. After evading German soldiers for fifteen days, he was captured and spent the next three years as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III, a hundred miles southeast of Berlin. Teillet was fortunate, in that conditions at this camp were not as brutal as in many others operated by the Nazis. It was liberated by the British Army in 1945.

After returning to Canada, Teillet became an insurance agent and manager. He was involved with the Knights of Columbus, and began his political career as a school trustee. He was also vice-president of the Manitoba Liberal Association in this period, and served on the federal party's executive in Winnipeg South Centre.

[edit] Political career

He was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1953 provincial election. He finished atop the polls in the constituency of St. Boniface, which elected two members by a single transferable ballot. For the next five years, Teillet served as a backbench supporter of Douglas Campbell's government.

Manitoba abandoned its multi-member constituencies in 1956, and Teillet was re-elected for the single-member seat of St. Boniface in the 1958 provincial election. The Liberal-Progressives were defeated in this election, and Teillet did not seek re-election in 1959.

He ran for the Canadian House of Commons in the federal election of 1962, and defeated incumbent Progressive Conservative Laurier Regnier by 2,601 votes in the federal riding of St. Boniface. He defeated Regnier again in the 1963 election, in which the Liberals won a minority government under Lester Pearson.

On April 22, 1963, he was appointed as Minister of Veterans Affairs in Pearson's government. In 1967, he established a memorial in Halifax, Nova Scotia dedicated to members of the Royal Canadian Navy who died in the Second World War. A Métis, Teillet also raised the subject of Métis rights in parliament.

Teillet was re-elected over Progressive Conservative candidate Harry DeLeeuw in the 1965 federal election. He was retained as Veteran Affairs Minister when Pierre Trudeau won the Liberal Party leadership in 1968.

In the 1968 federal election, Teillet unexpectedly lost the Liberal nomination for St. Boniface to Joseph-Philippe Guay. He chose not to run in another riding, and formally resigned from Cabinet on July 5, 1968.

He was later appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau to head the Canadian Pension Commission, which introduced reforms for Canada's pension policy. He served on this commission from 1968 to 1978.