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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Former mayor put Winnipeg on the map
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Mayor Steven Juba, left, plays chess with grandmaster Abe Yanofsky in 1967.
Now, here's something you don't hear all that often in the deeply polarized current political discourse:
Winnipeg's mayor -- one of the best ever.
TV PREVIEW
The Fifties: The Good Life
Hosted by Holly Doan
Tonight at 8
CPAC
It is, however, a sentiment that's considered in this week's instalment of The Fifties, a nostalgic nine-part series currently airing on CPAC, the parliamentary-access cable channel. The episode titled The Good Life examines the prosperity and optimism experienced by Canadians during the postwar boom years, and cites the contributions of visionary civic leaders -- including Winnipeg mayor Steve Juba -- as a key element in this country's shared sense of wellbeing.
As Manitoban-born producer/host Holly Doan points out, at the start of the 1950s, most Canadians did not own a car, a TV or a washing machine, and millions did not even have electricity in their homes. By the end of the decade, thanks to booming industry and a societal shift toward living on credit rather than cash, Canada became a nation of acquirers and items once regarded as luxuries became commonplace possessions.
"I think it was a good decade," says historian Desmond Morris. "The '40s had a war; the '30s had the Great Depression; the '20s had all sorts of problems of a poor country pretending to be rich. The '50s were a time when we didn't have to pretend any more."
During the 1950s, the population in Canada's urban centres increased sharply; cities became much more important to the nation's economy, and mayors of those cities became central figures in shaping Canada's future. Along with Montreal's Jean Drapeau -- who promised his citizens a world's fair and an Olympic games, and delivered both -- and Toronto's eccentric but popular Nathan Phillips, The Good Life recalls Winnipeg's Steve Juba -- who was elected in 1956 and served nine terms (21 years) in office -- as a transitional figure in Canadian political history.
"The affluence of the 1950s meant mayors spent more money and dreamed bigger dreams than any who came before them," says Doan. "Steve Juba put Winnipeg on the map."
He promised to bring the Pan Am Games to Winnipeg, and did. Of course, he also proposed an aggressive rapid-transit plan, in the form of the nation's first municipal monorail system, which never happened and remains a hot topic to this day.
The profile is brief, lasting only a few minutes of the hour-long episode, but it serves as a stark reminder of how much politics and political debate have changed in the half-century since Juba settled into his unchallenged reign at city hall.
-- -- --
Live, from New York, it's... Winnipeg?: The Saturday Night Live gang had a bit of Winnipeg-flavoured fun during Saturday's show in the form of a sketch called Celebrity Scoop, featuring a very Canuckish showbiz magazine that -- based on an opening that showed a WINNIPEG sign inspired by Hollywood's famous hillside identifier -- was supposed to be originating from this still-frozen Prairie burg.
"The nicest, most Canadian show about celebrities" featured characters speaking in over-the-top Fargo---infused Minnesotan accents, and several references to guests (like Alex Trebek's former babysitter) who couldn't appear on the show because "the road's closed." The hunting-cap-clad co-hosts also referred to having snagged some red-hot photos of "Ryan Phillippe and Amanda Seyfried canoodling," but quickly assured that "We're not going to show them, because that's private."
Funny? A bit. Winnipeg? Not really. But it was yet another reassuring nod to folks hereabouts who like to know that Hollywood is aware of our existence.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 15, 2011 D3
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