Don Robinson (politician)
Canadian politician (1919-1997)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Donald Frederick Robinson (1919 – January 9, 1997) was a Canadian politician who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of British Columbia from 1955 to 1966, representing the constituency of Lillooet as part of the Social Credit (Socred) caucus.[3]
Donald Frederick Robinson | |
|---|---|
| Member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly for Lillooet | |
| In office September 12, 1955 – August 5, 1966 | |
| Preceded by | Gordon Gibson, Sr. |
| Succeeded by | Riding abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1919[1][2] |
| Died | (aged 77) Calgary, Alberta |
| Party | British Columbia Social Credit Party |
| Occupation | locomotive engineer |
Biography
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Robinson attended school in Swalwell before moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he married his wife Anne; they had four children together.[1] The family moved to British Columbia, where Robinson became a locomotive engineer and mechanic for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway.[1][4]: 63 He contested the 1952 provincial election as a Social Credit candidate in the riding of Lillooet, but was defeated.[5]: 225 [6]
Liberal Gordon Gibson, Sr. was elected Lillooet MLA in 1953, then resigned in 1955 to trigger a by-election. He had alleged in the legislature that there had been fraudulent activities surrounding the award of forest management licences in the province (see Robert Sommers), and sought vindication from the electorate.[4]: 61 Robinson secured the Socred nomination,[2] then defeated Gibson in the September 1955 by-election to become MLA for Lillooet.[4]: 64–65 [5]: 263 He was re-elected in 1956, 1960 and 1963,[5]: 268, 279, 288 [6] but did not run again in the 1966 election, which saw the Lillooet riding dissolved and incorporated into the new district of Yale-Lillooet.
In his later years he returned to Calgary, where he died in 1997 at age 77.[1]
