Walter Weir

Who was Walter Weir?

Walter Cocksmith Weir was a politician who served as the 15th Premier of Manitoba from 1967 to 1969.

The son of James Dixon Weir, he was born in High Bluff, Manitoba and was educated there and in Portage la Prairie. Weir worked as an undertaker in Saskatchewan, later returning to Manitoba where he became the owner of his own funeral home in Minnedosa in 1953. In 1951, he married Harriet Thompson. Weir served as chairman of the Minnedosa Hospital Board from 1955 to 1957, and of the Minnedosa Town Council from 1958 to 1959. He sought the Progressive Conservative nomination for Minnedosa in the buildup to the 1958 provincial election, but lost to Sid Paler. He later defeated Paler for the party's nomination in the buildup to the 1959 provincial election; there was no lasting animosity between the candidates, and Paler served as Weir's campaign manager in the election that followed.

Weir was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in Dufferin Roblin's landslide victory of 1959, defeating Liberal-Progressive incumbent Charles Shuttleworth in the rural riding of Minnedosa.