McLaren, Lorne Aubrey (1928-)

Lorne McLaren, April 1983.

Regina Leader-Post

Born in Saltcoats on August 17, 1928, and raised on the family farm, Lorne McLaren was employed with Morris Rod Weeder Co. in 1951. Rising through the ranks of the Yorkton-based farm implement manufacturing company, McLaren entered management and became company president in 1979. He also served as chairman of the Prairie Implement Manufacturers Association. McLaren won the Yorkton constituency for the Progressive Conservatives in the 1982 election and was appointed to the new government's first Cabinet as Minister of Labour. A strong opponent of trade unions, McLaren was charged with introducing the government's new Labour Legislation that sought to undo much of Saskatchewan's existing labour laws. McLaren was dropped from his position in 1985. Re-elected in 1986, McLaren was appointed government caucus chair between 1986 and his political retirement in 1991. After McLaren left politics, an RCMP investigation into the financial dealings of the PC caucus office uncovered his central role in a fraud scandal of filing false expense accounts. He eventually pled guilty to charges of fraud, theft and breach of trust. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison, the most serious sentence of all nineteen people convicted in the scandal.

Brett Quiring