Tory minister admired for his honesty
Obituary Albert Driedger
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/07/2011 (5437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A former Filmon government highways minister with a reputation across party lines as a straight shooter has died.
Albert Driedger, a 22-year MLA who retired from politics in 1999, was 75.
From 1988 to 1997, Driedger served in three cabinet posts with the provincial Progressive Conservatives — government services, highways and transportation and natural resources.
He was first elected in the constituency of Emerson in 1977 and later represented Steinbach after his hometown of Grunthal was in the riding in an electoral redistribution.
During his years in cabinet he was tagged with the nickname “Honest Albert” by the opposition New Democrats. That was because he was more forthcoming with answers to questions than perhaps his own party’s political staff preferred, said current Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen, a former legislative assistant to Driedger.
“He was a character. He had a tremendous force of personality,” Goertzen said Tuesday. “He had the ability to be very direct and very specific in what he wanted, but still left you smiling at the end of the conversation.”
Driedger was born in Steinbach and educated at the University of Manitoba. After graduating from the U of M, he worked as a real-estate broker and farmer. He was reeve of the RM of Hanover from 1967 to 1972.
Goertzen said Driedger was old-school when it came to political communication: He spoke to people face to face and wrote things down by hand.
When Goertzen once suggested Driedger get a computer for his desk, his boss jokingly threatened to throw the contraption out his third-storey legislative building window if his staff ever requisitioned one. They never did.
In recent years, Driedger served as the board chairman of the Menno Home for the Aged, which operates a personal-care facility in Grunthal.
Driedger suffered a stroke earlier this month. He died in St. Pierre Hospital on Monday.
He is survived by his wife, Mary, and their five children, a son and four daughters.
Funeral services for Driedger will be held on Friday at 2 p.m. in the Steinbach Mennonite Church, 345 Loewen Blvd., in Steinbach.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca