Social Credit kingmaker McGeer dies at age 95
Longtime politician was also medical researcher
Pat McGeer changed the course of B.C. politics in 1975 when he left the B.C. Liberal party to join Bill Bennett's Socreds along with colleagues Garde Gardom and Allan Williams.
The new right-wing coalition defeated Dave Barrett's New Democrats in an ensuing election, and McGeer became one of Bennett's most powerful cabinet ministers, serving as minister of education, universities, science, communications and international trade.
McGeer died at his Point Grey home on Monday at age 95. No cause of death was announced.
A scientist and UBC professor outside politics, McGeer was known for his big ideas and penchant for controversy.
He made major changes to ICBC, criticized the federal government's plan to push Canadian content through the CRTC and advocated building a bridge to Vancouver Island.
“He was probably the brightest person to ever run for politics (in B.C.),” said his former executive assistant, Jane Burnes MacKeen. “He was absolutely full of ideas. I'd been working for Premier Bennett, and Pat had approached him and said, `Can Jane come work for me?' (Bennett) said, `Pat will have 10 ideas every week, and your job is to make sure I don't hear about the five bad ones.'
“It was like that, every day, another idea. Very creative, outside of the box.”
Patrick Lucey McGeer was born in Vancouver on June 29, 1927, into one of B.C.'s most prominent political families — his uncle Gerry was Vancouver's mayor for several years during the Great Depression.
He was a basketball star in his youth, good enough to make the Canada's 1948 Olympics team. After obtaining a chemistry degree at UBC, he went to Princeton, where he got a doctorate in chemistry.
He worked on plastics research for DuPont in Wilmington, Del., where he met his wife Edith. The couple came back to B.C. in 1954, when Pat went to medical school at UBC.
The couple would do medical research at UBC for decades, even when McGeer was a cabinet minister. They were internationally known for their research into Alzheimer's disease.
McGeer entered politics in 1962 when he was the successful Liberal candidate in Point Grey. He became the provincial Liberal leader in 1968, but resigned in 1972, the year he published a book, Politics in Paradise.
After a decade as a Social Credit cabinet minister, he left politics in 1986 to go back to medical research at UBC. But he still had some pet projects he wanted to see through, like the bridge to Vancouver Island. McGeer still had the engineering model on the top floor of his home.
He remained athletic into his 90s, playing tennis on a grass court he built in his backyard. He was also an avid skier.
He is survived by his wife Edith and three children, Rick, Tad and Victoria.