Vic Toews
Victor Toews is a Canadian politician and jurist. Toews is a justice of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba. He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on July 9, 2013, and served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, most recently as Minister of Public Safety. He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1995 to 1999, and was a senior cabinet minister in the government of Gary Filmon. Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Toews was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Personal life
Toews was born September 10, 1952, in Filadelfia, Boquerón Department, Paraguay, to Mennonite Canadian parents. His father, Victor David Toews, was a Reverend who was teaching in the Fernheim Mennonite Colony with Toews mother, Anna Peters. In 1920, his paternal great-grandparents were killed in a bomb blast during the Russian Civil War after the Russian Revolution. Vic Toews has five siblings: Bernhard, Clara, Marlene, Edward, and Esther. His family left Paraguay in 1956 for Canada and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.Toews speaks Mennonite Low German, Spanish and English. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Winnipeg, and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Manitoba. Toews was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1977. He joined the provincial Ministry of Justice in 1976 and became a Crown attorney the following year.
Divorce
Toews divorced from his wife of 30 years, Lorraine Kathleen Fehr, after it was discovered that he had fathered a child with a young Conservative Party staffer. In divorce documents, Fehr claimed Toews had a much earlier relationship with the family's child care provider. This incident later became publicized in February 2012, when an anonymous Twitter account began posting information from Toews' divorce affidavit as reaction to the introduction of Bill-30.Conviction
In 2005, Toews was charged with violating Manitoba's Election Finances Act in the 1999 provincial election. During the election cycle, it was discovered that his election campaign had spent $7,500 more than the allowed limit. Toews pleaded guilty, and was later convicted and fined $500.Provincial politician
Toews joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba in 1989, winning a seat in the 1995 election, by narrowly defeating NDP incumbent Harry Schellenberg in the north Winnipeg riding of Rossmere. In 1999, the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 1999 provincial election and Toews himself lost to Schellenberg in a rematch.Minister of Labour
Toews was appointed to the cabinet of Premier Gary Filmon after the election, becoming Minister of Labour on May 9, 1995. In his debut speech to the legislature, he said that his political philosophy was partly influenced by leaders of Canada's social democratic movement, as well as his own Mennonite upbringing.Toews's tenure as Labour Minister was marked by a difficult relationship with organized labour. His first major legislative initiative was Bill 26, which required unions to disclose the salaries of their officials and indicate how membership dues were spent, mandated union certification votes to take place within seven days of an application, and granted employees the right to prevent their dues from being donated to political parties. Several labour leaders described the bill as anti-union. NDP leader Gary Doer argued that the provision regarding donations unfairly targeted his party, and suggested that corporate shareholders should be given the same right to shield their investments from party donations. Toews rejected these criticisms, and argued that Bill 26 provided greater autonomy to individual workers.
Toews's department proposed the privatization of home-care delivery services in 1996, drawing opposition from many in the field and triggering an extended strike. He was also forced to deal with strikes at Boeing, Inco, and the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation, leading one journalist to describe 1996 as "the busiest year for picketing since the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike". Toews blamed unions for provoking the strikes, saying they were conducted "for political, not economic, reasons."
Toews cancelled the provincial Payment of Wages Fund in July 1996, argued that it was not achieving its purpose. The stated intention of the fund was to allow workers to collect revenues from employers who entered bankruptcy or receivership.
Minister of Justice
On January 6, 1997, Toews was promoted to Minister of Justice, Attorney General and Keeper of the Great Seal, with further responsibility for Constitutional Affairs.Approach to crime and the judiciary
As Justice Minister, Toews earned a reputation for focusing on "law and order" issues. One of his first ministerial decisions was to grant jail superintendents the right to institute complete smoking bans, impose random drug tests, and monitor prisoners' calls. In August 1998, Toews announced that his ministry would hire more Crown attorneys and construct more than seventy new beds for the Headingley Correctional Institution, in an attempt to incarcerate more dangerous offenders.Toews also introduced legislation to make parents legally responsible for the crimes of their children. Members of the opposition New Democratic Party argued that the plan would be ineffective, citing past experiments in the United States as evidence.
Toews criticized some criminal justice initiatives brought forward by the federal government of Jean Chrétien. In 1997, he announced that Manitoba would not enforce or administer the Canadian gun registry. Two years later, he described changes to the federal Young Offenders Act as both ineffective and too expensive. Toews nonetheless cooperated with the federal government on several issues. In March 1998, he stood with federal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy to announce a plan discouraging court sentences for non-violent aboriginal offenders. Toews said that the proposal was "sensitive to the needs of the aboriginal community", and that it would reduce the number of repeat offenders.
Toews's relationship with the judiciary was sometimes difficult. In May 1998, he asked a judicial appointment committee to add two names to a list of proposed judges. Some argued that this was improper interference, while Toews stated that he acted to ensure the appointment of more bilingual judges. In 1999, he delivered a speech to the Alberta Summit on Justice that criticized judges for intervening in political matters. He was quoted as saying that judges, unlike parliamentarians, "are not well-placed to understand and represent the social, economic and political values of the public". Some attendees criticized his speech, and a representative of the Legal Aid Society of Alberta described it as "inflammatory and sensational". Toews stated on another occasion that judges have a relatively light workload. Chief Provincial Justice Judith Webster described this as "misleading and inaccurate".
In May 1999, Toews announced that Manitoba would accept a Supreme Court of Canada decision granting spousal benefits to same-sex couples.
Opposition criticism
The New Democrats argued that Crown offices were underfunded under Toews' watch, and suggested that the Justice Department's prosecutorial duties were compromised.During a legislative debate in June 1999, Toews accused NDP Justice Critic Gord Mackintosh of mischief for repeatedly calling the province's Street Peace gang hotline only to hang up before leaving a message. Calls to the hotline were meant to be confidential and anonymous, but Toews later acknowledged that calls from government buildings had been tracked and that he received Mackintosh's name from an employee in his department. Premier Filmon described Toews's conduct in the matter as inappropriate. During the fallout from this controversy, Toews was forced to admit that the hotline had gone unanswered for several months.
Federal politician
Party alignment
After leaving provincial politics, Toews turned his attention to the federal scene and Canada's "unite-the-right" movement. He had been a supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada for decades federally. Although he did not endorse the United Alternative initiative when it was first announced in 1999, he began calling for cooperation between the Tories and the right-wing Reform Party of Canada. He expressed interest in working with the Canadian Alliance, a successor to the Reform Party that sought to build support among Blue Tory Progressive Conservatives. Toews endorsed Tom Long's bid for the Alliance leadership in June 2000, and approved of Brian Pallister's efforts to bring the Progressive Conservatives into cooperation with the new party.Toews formally joined the Alliance in the buildup to the 2000 federal election, and defeated four other candidates to win the party's nomination in Provencher, a primarily rural riding in southeastern Manitoba. The riding was held by Liberal incumbent David Iftody, but had elected conservative candidates in the past. Toews defeated Iftody with a nearly 7,000-vote margin in the general election. The Liberals won a national majority government, and Toews was appointed as Justice Critic in the opposition shadow cabinet.
The Canadian Alliance was weakened by internal divisions in mid-2001, with several MPs calling on party leader Stockwell Day to resign. Toews did not take a strong position for or against Day's leadership, but issued a call for party discipline pending a formal review. When Day resigned, Toews worked on Grant Hill's unsuccessful campaign to become the new party leader.
In 2003, Toews recommended that Alliance members purchase Progressive Conservative membership cards to support the leadership bid of Jim Prentice. He denied this constituted interference, and said that members of the two parties should be encouraged to work together.