James McCrae

James Collus "Jim" McCrae (born September 19, 1948) is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1986 to 1999, in the Progressive Conservative Party caucus. From 1988 to 1999, McCrae was a cabinet minister in the government of Premier Gary Filmon.

Early life and career

McCrae was born in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Provincial politics McCrae was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1986 provincial election, defeating New Democratic Party candidate Arnold Grambo The NDP under Howard Pawley narrowly won the election, and McCrae joined 25 other Progressive Conservatives in the opposition.

In 1988, the Pawley government was brought down by disgruntled NDP backbencher Jim Walding. The Progressive Conservatives won a minority government in the election that followed; McCrae was re-elected

In the final cabinet shuffle of Filmon's government on February 5, 1999, he was named Minister of Education and Training. McCrae was acclaimed to city council in 2010. In May, he was named a part-time Citizenship Judge for Winnipeg.

In October 2023, McCrae appeared before Brandon City Council in opposition to a deferred resolution of council recognizing Canadian Indian Residential Schools as genocide , questioning the applicability of the term and argued the motion was ultra vires.

On May 13, 2024, the Brandon School Division Board of Trustees received communications from McCrae regarding the inclusion of the book Grave Error: How The Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) in the division's high school libraries and related concerns. McCrae attempted to speak to the board during the May 13th meeting but the board denied to hear from McCrae, indicating that his delegation request had previously been denied due to an incomplete delegation request form.

McCrae appeared as a delegation to the Brandon School Division Board of Trustees on June 10th 2024 to address disrespectful abuse of him at the May 13th meeting. During McCrae's delegation, three trustees excused themselves from the meeting and the vice-chairperson ruled McCrae's delegation out of order.