George Van Roggen
Canadian politician
George Clifford Van Roggen (July 22, 1921 – June 8, 1992) was a Canadian Senator and a longtime advocate of free trade with the United States.
Background
Van Roggen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. After graduating in law from the University of British Columbia, Van Roggen went to Whitehorse, Yukon in 1949 becoming the town's only practicing lawyer. He later became future Conservative MP Eric Nielsen's law partner.
He returned to Vancouver in 1957 to practice corporate law specializing in corporate real estate.
He was a Liberal Party activist and served as British Columbia campaign chair for the Liberals under Lester Pearson and served in the same role under Pierre Trudeau for the 1968 and 1972 federal elections.
The issue of free trade with the United States had been a dead letter in Canadian politics since the defeat of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government in the 1911 federal election on the issue of what was called "reciprocity" with the United States. In 1966, Van Roggen spearheaded the approval of a pro-free trade resolution at a national Liberal Party conference. The motion passed but Prime Minister Pearson responded by saying the issue should not be considered "at this time."
He was appointed to the Senate in 1971. In 1974, he became chairman of the Senate's Committee of Foreign Affairs and had the committee conduct a study of free trade with the United States which recommended the negotiation of a free trade agreement.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5545448. VIAF identifies the subject as 65439861. The Library of Congress control number is n85123567. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1992, 1949 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Van Roggen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.