Duff Roblin

Dufferin Roblin was born in Winnipeg, the grandson of Manitoba Premier Sir Rodmond Roblin. Serving as a wing commander in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, he rebuilt the provincial Progressive Conservative Party, winning government in 1958 and serving as Premier of Manitoba for a decade.

Despite fierce political mockery that labeled the project 'Duff's Ditch' as an extravagant waste of public money, Roblin championed the construction of the forty-seven-kilometer Red River Floodway. Completed in 1968, the floodway has successfully diverted catastrophic floodwaters around Winnipeg dozens of times, saving the capital from billions of dollars in destruction and standing as one of Canada's greatest civil engineering achievements.