George Hees

George Harris Hees, PC, OC (June 17, 1910 - June 11, 1996) was a Canadian politician.

Born in Toronto to a patrician family, Hees earned a playboy image during his youth (nicknamed Gorgeous George), but then became a stalwart member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He was educated at the exclusive Crescent School in Toronto, Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, the Royal Military College, student # 1976 (where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Military Science in 1986), the University of Toronto, and spent a year at Cambridge University in 1933.

He was a noted athlete, winning championships in boxing and lacrosse at Cambridge, and the Grey Cup with the Toronto Argonauts Canadian football team in December 1938. He served in the Canadian Army in North-West Europe during the Second World War. During the Battle of the Scheldt, he served as the Brigade Major of the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade. On 1 November 1944, he volunteered to take over command of a company of The Calgary Highlanders when all their officers were killed or wounded after crossing the Walcheren Causeway. He was later wounded by a sniper and was repatriated to Canada and discharged.

After placing second to David Croll in the Toronto riding of Spadina in the 1945 federal election, he won election to the Canadian House of Commons in a 1950 by-election in the nearby riding of Broadview. He was also President of the Progressive Conservative Party from 1953 to 1956.

With the election of the Diefenbaker government in 1957, Hees was named Minister of Transport, and oversaw the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway. In 1960, he was appointed Minister of Trade and Commerce. During this period, Hees was regarded as the second most powerful man in the Tory party. However, in 1963, he had falling out with Diefenbaker, and became embroiled in the Munsinger Affair and elected to sit out the 1963 election, which the Tories lost to Lester Pearson.

After considering a defection to the Liberals, he became President of the Montreal Stock Exchange, he returned to Parliament in the 1965 election as a PC, defeating Pauline Jewett in the rural riding of Northumberland, and remained in the front rows of the opposition ranks for almost two decades.

He ran for the leadership of the PC Party at its 1967 leadership convention, and placed fourth in a field of eleven on the first ballot. He remained for two further ballots before withdrawing, and supporting the eventual winner, Robert Stanfield.

He was noted as being involved in a memorable case of battery, in which he forcefully ejected a campaign worker from his room, striking his head against the door. Hees tried to plead self-defence, which failed due to the lack of imminent harm anticipated by him (MacDonald v. Hees (1974), 46 D.L.R. (3d) (N.S.T.D.)).

He was not named to Cabinet during the Joe Clark government in 1979, and was quoted as Clark stepped down in the 1983 leadership race; "We've got him! We've got the s.o.b."

When Brian Mulroney led the party to a majority government in 1984, Hees was named Minister of Veterans Affairs. Hees retired from politics in 1988. In 1989 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

There is a veterans wing at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre bearing his name, and in close proximity to the relocated Crescent School he attended as a child.

External links

• Crescent School Alumni Wall of Honour 1995
• Order of Canada citation
• George Hees - Parliament of Canada biography