Stephen Juba

Born in Winnipeg to Gregory Juba (1885-1958) and Sophia Mosata (1888-1970) who both came from Horokok, Ukraine.

His brother Daniel Harry Juba (1909-1986) was mayor of Brooklands, Manitoba.

Juba Street in Brooklands was named after his brother.

Juba left school at age fifteen, when his family could no longer pay for his education.

Stephen Juba, (July 1, 1914 – May 2, 1993) was a Canadian politician.

His father, a building contractor, saw his practice decline after the stock market crash of 1929.

Juba worked in odd jobs for several years, and also started two small businesses before he was twenty-one: Weston Builders Ltd. and S.N. Juba & Co. These names reflected Juba's gift for self-promotion.

Weston Builders Ltd. was not actually an incorporated company; Juba had simply added "Ltd."

to its name to make it "look official".

In the case of S.N. Juba & Co., he added a fictitious middle initial because he thought it "sounded good".

He was largely unsuccessful as a businessman until 1945, when he started a wholesale distributing firm called Keystone Supply Ltd, which would make him wealthy.

Juba's first forays into electoral politics were unsuccessful.

He married Jennie Brow on April 14, 1946 at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church in Brooklands, Manitoba.

They divorced in 1948.

He would then marry Elva.

There were no children by either marriage.

He ran as an independent candidate in Winnipeg North Centre in the Canadian federal election of June 1949, against rising CCF star Stanley Knowles.

He later acknowledged that had no chance of winning, but entered the race "to gain experience" and "to be educated by an expert".

He received only 694 votes, finishing a very distant fourth.

In the provincial election of November 1949, Juba ran in the riding of Winnipeg Centre as an Independent Liberal, supporting the coalition government of Douglas L. Campbell.

The City of Winnipeg was divided into three provincial constituencies at the time, each of which elected four members by preferential balloting.

Juba finished eighth with 1015 votes on the first ballot, and was eliminated on the fourth count.

He ran for the Winnipeg City Council in 1950 and 1952, and came surprisingly close to winning on the second occasion.

He challenged Winnipeg mayor Garnet Coulter later in 1952, and received 28,000 votes to Coulter's 38,000 (CCF candidate Donovan Swailes finished third with 22,000).

Under the Alternative Voting system in use, Swailes' votes were transferred, mostly to Coulter who won the seat.

Juba called for reform of the province's liquor laws during this campaign.

He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1953 to 1959, and served as the 37th Mayor of Winnipeg from 1957 to 1977.

He was the first Ukrainian Canadian to hold high political office in the city.

With an increased civic profile, Juba ran again as an independent in the 1953 provincial election.

He finished second in Winnipeg Centre, and secured election on the eighth count.

During this election, Juba supported racetrack gambling to fund the provincial hospital system.

During his time as an MLA, Juba remained independent of party politics and was not committed to any particular ideology.

His primary accomplishment was securing reform for the province's outdated liquor laws.

In 1954 he ran for mayor again, this time placing second to alderman George Sharpe.

Juba would be more successful in the next election.

He had been elected mayor of Winnipeg in 1956.

Juba was also re-elected as an MLA in the provincial election of 1958, this time defeating CCF candidate Art Coulter in the redistributed, single-member riding of Logan.

The minority Conservative government did not last long.

He did not seek re-election again when it fell in 1959.

He chose instead to concentrate on his responsibilities at city hall.