Thompson: Blain Johnston
Blain Johnston, a doctor from Winnipeg, became the first medical doctor in Thompson, Manitoba in 1957. He led the Thompson Clinic and represented northern Manitoba in the Manitoba Medical Association.[1] Johnston initially opted out of Manitoba's medicare program in 1969 and encouraged other doctors in Thompson to do the same.[2]
Johnston was elected to the Thompson city council in the 1966 municipal election, topping the polls in the city's single multi-member division. He became deputy mayor before resigning his seat in late 1968.[3]
He first ran for the Manitoba legislature in a by-election held for the Churchill electoral division on February 20, 1969. He was forty-one years old at the time of the campaign. Johnston ran as an independent, and some local Liberals charged that his candidacy was organized by the governing Progressive Conservatives to split the opposition vote. Johnston rejected this charge, as did the Progressive Conservatives.[4] Johnston ultimately defeated both the Liberal and Progressive Conservative candidates and finished a very narrow second behind New Democratic Party candidate Joe Borowski. (The original returns showed Borowski with a twenty-three vote lead; a judicial recount narrowed his majority to seventeen.)[5]
Johnston returned to municipal politics, and was elected to the second position on Thompson's city council in the 1970 municipal election. He ran for the provincial legislature as a Liberal in the 1973 provincial election and finished third against New Democrat Ken Dillen in Thompson.
Johnston's son, Tim Johnston, was elected mayor of Thompson in 2006.
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