T. Patrick Reid, who represented Rainy River in the Ontario Legislature for 17 years, was in Fort Frances last week and took the time to donate a copy of his autobiography Lucky All My Life: The Man from Rainy River to the Fort Frances Public Library Technology Centre (FFPLTC).
Reid’s family is the namesake of the library’s address; his great grandfather moved to the area at the turn of the century and established a sawmill in the area leading to the street where the library now sits to be called Reid Avenue.
Reid was the first baby born at La Verendrye General Hospital in 1943, arriving on Jan. 2.
His father carried on the legacy of business ownership and owned several ventures in town.
“My dad was a businessman, and he had Reid’s Insurance and real estate,” he said. “He started the first radio station in Fort Frances, CFOB in 1943-44 during the Second World War.”
Reid was largely raised in Atikokan, where the family moved in 1948, and his father continued as an entrepreneur there, owning several more businesses.
It wasn’t until he was in graduated school that he considered throwing his hat into the political ring.
“I was in graduate school in economics, and [MPP] Mr. Bill Noden, who had been the Conservative MPP, he retired, and my brother was a federal member, and he phoned me and said, ‘You might be interested in running’. Mr. Noden was very popular. So I said, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose.’ I didn’t have any job. Our family was very political growing up. Anyway, I ran, and with the support of a lot of people, I won by 41 votes. We had a recount, and I won the next four elections after that.”
Reid was the MPP for the riding then known simply as Rainy River from 1967 until 1984, when he resigned and became the executive director of the Ontario Mining Association.
Reid was visiting Fort Frances last week with his wife Maureen and daughter Aislinn and her family. It was Aislinn’s husband who convinced him to write his book, Reid said.
“He talked me into it and gave it to me, so to speak,” Reid said. “I also remembered my father said one time that his father, my grandfather. had been in the Northwest Mounted Police. I never knew that. I was 28 or 30 and I never knew that. I said ‘Dad, why didn’t you tell me this stuff before?’ he said, ‘well, you never asked.’ So that was part of my motivation about all of this.”
A few of Reid’s highlights from the book include the constituents continuing to send him back to the legislature several times.
“Well, I guess getting elected five times. I was, at one point, the last provincial Liberal in Northern Ontario, all of Northern Ontario. At one point I was farthest west, if you can believe it, Liberal period. Because under Trudeau the Liberals got all wiped out,” he said. “Winning five elections was really something, and I was big on Quetico Park, which we canoed. My brothers and I and [cousin] Tom canoed in, and I was helpful in getting it designated as a wilderness park because up to that time there was logging in the park.”
In accepting the book, FFPLTC CEO Nadine Cousineau said receiving the work was special.
“This book in particular is very cool because we are on Reid Avenue, and it’s really interesting to know the history of the street name,” she said.
Lucky All My Life: The Man from Rainy River by T. Patrick Reid is available for checkout at the Fort Frances Public Library.
