Vic Toews

In 1920, his paternal great-grandparents were killed in a bomb blast during the Russian Civil War after the Russian Revolution.

Vic Toews has five siblings: Bernhard, Clara, Marlene, Edward, and Esther.

Victor Toews (born September 10, 1952) is a Canadian politician and jurist.

Toews is a judge of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba.

Toews was born September 10, 1952, in Filadelfia, Boquerón Department, Paraguay to Mennonite Canadian parents.

His father, Victor David Toews, was a Reverend who was teaching in the Fernheim Mennonite Colony with Toews mother, Anna Peters.

His family left Paraguay in 1956 for Canada and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Toews speaks Mennonite Low German (his mother tongue), Spanish and English.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Winnipeg (1973), and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Manitoba (1976).

He joined the provincial Ministry of Justice in 1976 and became a Crown attorney the following year.

Toews divorced from his wife of 30 years, Lorraine Kathleen Fehr, after it was discovered that he had fathered a child with a young Conservative Party staffer.

In divorce documents, Fehr claimed Toews had a much earlier relationship with the family's child care provider.

Toews was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1977.

Toews joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba in 1989, winning a seat in the 1995 election, by narrowly defeating NDP incumbent Harry Schellenberg in the north Winnipeg riding of Rossmere.

He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1995 to 1999, and was a senior cabinet minister in the government of Gary Filmon.

Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Toews was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Toews was appointed to the cabinet of Premier Gary Filmon after the election, becoming Minister of Labour on May 9, 1995.

In his debut speech to the legislature, he said that his political philosophy was partly influenced by leaders of Canada's social democratic movement, as well as his own Mennonite upbringing.

Toews's tenure as Labour Minister was marked by a difficult relationship with organized labour.

His first major legislative initiative was Bill 26 (1996), which required unions to disclose the salaries of their officials and indicate how membership dues were spent, mandated union certification votes to take place within seven days of an application, and granted employees the right to prevent their dues from being donated to political parties.

Several labour leaders described the bill as anti-union.

NDP leader Gary Doer argued that the provision regarding donations unfairly targeted his party, and suggested that corporate shareholders should be given the same right to shield their investments from party donations.

Toews rejected these criticisms, and argued that Bill 26 provided greater autonomy to individual workers.

Toews's department proposed the privatization of home-care delivery services in 1996, drawing opposition from many in the field and triggering an extended strike.

He was also forced to deal with strikes at Boeing, Inco, and the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation, leading one journalist to describe 1996 as "the busiest year for picketing since the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike".

Toews blamed unions for provoking the strikes, saying they were conducted "for political, not economic, reasons."

Toews cancelled the provincial Payment of Wages Fund in July 1996, argued that it was not achieving its purpose.

The stated intention of the fund was to allow workers to collect revenues from employers who entered bankruptcy or receivership.

On January 6, 1997, Toews was promoted to Minister of Justice, Attorney General and Keeper of the Great Seal, with further responsibility for Constitutional Affairs.

As Justice Minister, Toews earned a reputation for focusing on "law and order" issues.

One of his first ministerial decisions was to grant jail superintendents the right to institute complete smoking bans, impose random drug tests, and monitor prisoners' calls.

In August 1998, Toews announced that his ministry would hire more Crown attorneys and construct more than seventy new beds for the Headingley Correctional Institution, in an attempt to incarcerate more dangerous offenders.

Toews also introduced legislation to make parents legally responsible for the crimes of their children.

Members of the opposition New Democratic Party argued that the plan would be ineffective, citing past experiments in the United States as evidence.

In 1999, the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 1999 provincial election and Toews himself lost to Schellenberg in a rematch.

In 2005, Toews was charged with violating Manitoba's Election Finances Act in the 1999 provincial election.

During the election cycle, it was discovered that his election campaign had spent $7,500 more than the allowed limit.

Toews pleaded guilty, and was later convicted and fined $500.

This incident later became publicized in February 2012, when an anonymous Twitter account (later discovered to be a Liberal Party staffer) began posting information from Toews' divorce affidavit (that were on the public record, filed with the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba) as reaction to the introduction of Bill-30.

He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on July 9, 2013, and served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, most recently as Minister of Public Safety.