Roland Penner

Roland Penner CM OM QC (born July 30, 1924) was Dean of Law at the University of Manitoba and a is a former politician and Manitoba Cabinet minister.

Penner was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the son of Winnipeg alderman Jacob Penner (d. 1965) and Rose Shapack. He served in Europe during World War II in the Canadian artillery, and was educated at the University of Manitoba (receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949 and an LL.B. in 1961) and in London, England. He has worked at the University of Manitoba since 1967, and has been a Professor since 1972. From 1972 to 1978, he was the President of Legal Aid Manitoba. From 1979 to 1980, he was president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. In 1982, Penner married Janet Kay Baldwin.

Both of Penner's parents were active in the communist Labor-Progressive Party, and Penner himself was actively involved with this organization in his youth. In the Canadian federal election of 1953, he ran as a candidate of the party in the predominantly middle-class riding of Winnipeg South Centre. He received only 504 votes, finishing a poor fourth. He also ran as an LPP candidate for Winnipeg School Trustee in the 1953 Winnipeg municipal election.