Slaw Rebchuk

Slaw Rebchuk (February 10, 1907 – January 15, 1996) was a longtime municipal politician in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, popularly known as the "Mayor of the North End".

Rebchuk was born to a Ukrainian immigrant family in north-end Winnipeg, and graduated from St. John's High School. He worked in the dry goods business, and was a softball catcher for thirty years. He was also active with the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood and the Knights of Columbus. The Vatican awarded him one of its highest honours, the Knighthood of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, in 1981.

Rebchuk became active with the Young Liberal Association in 1925, and contested his first election in 1938. Running for a school trustee position, he lost to Andrew Biletski of the Communist Party.

Rebchuk was first elected to the Winnipeg City Council in 1949 for Winnipeg's third ward, as candidate of the right-leaning Civic Election Committee (CEC). Civic elections in this period were conducted by preferential balloting; although the third ward was located in Winnipeg's predominantly working-class and left-leaning north end, the CEC was usually able to win one of its three seats. Rebchuk described himself as a "rightist".

Notwithstanding that he was a smoker, Rebchuk co-sponsored a successful motion in 1964 to ban smoking in the council chamber. The following year, he brought forward a motion to withdraw the City of Winnipeg from the regional Metropolitan Corporation. This was defeated by a vote of 9-7. The CEC changed its name to the Greater Winnipeg Election Committee in the mid-1960s. Rebchuk broke from this group to sit as an independent councillor, and was chosen as Winnipeg's acting mayor and finance committee chairman in 1969 as part of an arrangement with left-leaning councillors. He left council in 1977 following twenty-eight years of continuous service, after losing his redistributed ward to New Democrat Bill Chornopyski (the city had previously switched to single-member ward representation).

...
Wikipedia