Saul Mark Cherniack, PC CM OM QC (January 10, 1917 – March 30, 2018) was a Canadian lawyer and politician.
[3] His parents, Joseph Alter Cherniack[3] and Fanya Golden,[3] had been revolutionaries in Russia and had been briefly imprisoned before coming to Canada in 1905.
[2] Alter Cherniack became a prominent member of Winnipeg's Jewish community and leading supporter of the Independent Labour Party and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in the city's north end.
[2] He was educated at the University of Manitoba (receiving a law degree in 1939), and was active in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and in the Jewish community of Winnipeg.
[5] In 1968-69, Cherniack was a key figure in the provincial NDP calling for Edward Schreyer to replace Russell Paulley as party leader.
He initially considered challenging Paulley himself, but declined, reportedly on the advice of NDP research adviser Doug Rowland.
[5] He was also given the Urban Affairs portfolio for a brief period in 1970, and was responsible for amalgamating the suburbs and inner city of Winnipeg into one large municipality, the first such unification in North America.
Cherniack criticized the Manitoba New Democratic Party's recent leadership divisions in making his announcement, arguing that personality questions were obscuring substantive issues.
Accordingly, he was sworn into the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on November 30, 1984, to enable him access to information restricted under the Official Secrets Act.
In the 1999 provincial election, his son Lawrie Cherniack ran for the NDP in Fort Garry against Joy Smith, and lost by only 30 votes.