Erhart Regier (January 15, 1916 – October 22, 1976) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

politician, who represented the electoral district of

Burnaby—Coquitlam Burnaby—Coquitlam was a federal electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1953 to 1968. This riding was created in 1952 from parts of Burnaby—Richmond riding. It was aboli ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

from 1953 to 1962. Regier was born in Laird, Saskatchewan to a Mennonite family. After working as a teacher and founding a cooperative association general store, he was elected as a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) MP in the 1953 election. When the CCF was succeeded by the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961, he joined its caucus. The following year, Regier resigned his House seat on August 20, 1962 so that federal NDP leader

Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and Leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Baptist min ...

could contest a safe seat in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

. He then stood as the NDP's candidate in

Fraser Valley The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the ...

in the 1963 election, in Algoma West in the 1965 election and in

Prince George—Peace River A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

in the 1968 election, but was not re-elected to the House in any of the later elections. Regier was the first Mennonite elected to the Canadian Parliament. In his maiden speech, he invoked his Mennonite background as part of an appeal for the abolition of the Canadian military, arguing that Canada's defence budget should instead go to the United Nations' military operations budget and the other half to humanitarian aid. However, Regier was also critical of his Mennonite community, which he perceived as being overly-reluctant to participate in the Canadian political process. After retiring from Parliament, he wrote in the ''Canadian Mennonite'' that, in liberal democracies like Canada, “our ennoniteleaders of the past have failed to meet their responsibilities in that they clung to the old attitudes instead of attempting to participate and to help the children of God.”Erhart Regier, “A Mennonite in a Democratic Society,” ''The Canadian Mennonite'', November 23, 1962, 7.

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* 1916 births 1976 deaths Canadian Mennonites Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MPs 20th-century Canadian politicians New Democratic Party MPs Members of the House of Commons of Canada from British Columbia {{BritishColumbia-politician-stub