CANADA COURIER: Peter Liba moves into Government House (06/20/99)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

Peter Liba moves into Government House

With its Golden Boy adorning the top, surroundings that feature a statue in tribute to Taras Shevchenko and well-appointed landscaping, Manitoba's Legislative Building - a stone's throw from the Assiniboine River - is a nice place to be in the summertime. If you live there, all the better, as Peter Michael Liba will soon discover as he moved into the newly renovated Government House on May 27.

On March 2, Mr. Liba was named Manitoba's 22nd lieutenant-governor, the vice-regal counterpart to the governor general, who represents the queen, Canada's constitutional head of state. Indeed, Mr. Liba has something in common with Governor General Roméo LeBlanc: both worked as journalists in previous careers. Mr. Liba also shares something with a lot of Manitobans: a Ukrainian heritage, which also makes him Manitoba's first lieutenant-governor of Ukrainian descent.

Born in Winnipeg 59 years ago to a father who emigrated from Ukraine in the 1920s and a mother who grew up in Portage la Prairie (a community about an hour's drive west of Winnipeg), Mr. Liba began his career in newspapers. After working as a reporter and editor with Portage la Prairie's Daily Graphic and The Neepawa Press, in 1960 he joined the since-closed Winnipeg Tribune, where he was appointed city editor seven years later. But print wouldn't be where Mr. Liba would make his mark. Television grabbed him and he became part of one of Canada's fastest-growing television networks.

In 1974 Mr. Liba joined the CanWest Group of Companies, of which he was a founding shareholder.

Eventually he was named president and chief executive officer of CKND-TV in Winnipeg and SaskWest TV in nearby Saskatchewan. In 1993 Mr. Liba moved to corporate office where he served as executive vice-president of CanWest Global Communications. Two years ago, when he was semi-retired, Mr. Liba took on part-time duties as the company's executive director of corporate affairs. In 1998 the Canadian Association of Broadcasters inducted him into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame.

CanWest Global Communications Corp. owns and operates the Global Television Network in Canada, as well as one radio and two television networks in New Zealand. The Winnipeg-based company also has TV operations in Australia, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Mr. Liba's former boss, media mogul and former Manitoba Liberal Party leader Izzy Asper, today is considered one of the most powerful people in Canadian broadcasting.

But, as Mr. Asper would know from his days in politics, when the federal Liberal leader comes calling - and he happens to be the prime minister - it's hard to turn down a request to serve one's country. So, when Jean Chrétien called Mr. Liba, it took all of about three minutes for the cherubic-faced broadcasting executive to agree to the job that will pay an annual salary of $97,200 (about $70,000 U.S.).

Mr. Liba said he was honored by his January 18 appointment and took some satisfaction in being able to "come back to the legislature in such an entirely different role and be the one who does the functions I used to observe" as a journalist from the legislative press gallery.

The role carries much ceremony - greeting dignitaries (as he did recently when Czech President Václav Havel came calling) and opening sessions of the legislature - and some power. Mr. Liba signs all Manitoba bills into law and could technically refuse to do so under the Constitution Act of 1867. However, it's more likely - given his ethnic background and anticipating the numerous invitations he will receive from the local Ukrainian community - he will be the one hobnobbing at festivals, sampling varenyky and holding the front-row seat for dance recitals.

But maintaining a community profile won't be something new for Mr. Liba, who was named a member of the country's highest civilian honors system, the Order of Canada, in 1984.

Until his appointment as lieutenant governor he had been a director of the St. Boniface General Hospital for 12 years and served as chairman of the hospital board for the last seven. Mr. Liba was also the founding chairman of the Variety Club Telethon in Manitoba, and has served as chairman and director of the Winnipeg Convention Center, as well as director of the Manitoba Heart Foundation, the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews' Prairie Region and Winnipeg's Refugee Assistance Committee.

Mr. Liba has been married to Shirley Ann Collett for the past 36 years; has three children and two grandchildren. He also served as an elected school trustee in Winnipeg's Transcona-Springfield School Board from 1964 to 1967. Sensitivity to the needs of his community, mixed with a dose of diplomacy, appears to be part of his nature as witnessed by his pledge to advance the interests of aboriginal and young people at the top of his agenda. Mr. Liba's predecessor, Yvon Dumont, was Manitoba's first lieutenant governor of Métis descent when he was appointed in 1993. With a provincial election looming on the horizon in Manitoba, Mr. Liba will be one of the few constants around the Manitoba legislature in the near future.

His somewhat new face on the provincial government scene will have become a familiar one - and Government House's new carpets will be ready to handle the most energetic of hopaks over the next five years.

| Home Page |