Late lawyer Sid Green’s tenacity changed lives

The Free Press tribute to Sid Green (Man of conviction, July 4) captured so much of the man I knew: his intelligence, his tenacity, his independence and his willingness to say what he believed, whether or not it was popular.

But I would like to add something about the difference those qualities could make in the life of another person.

In 1996, at the age of 23, I was in an automobile accident after hitting a moose. I became a complete C4 quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down.

I was in deep trouble.

Manitoba’s no-fault automobile insurance system was relatively new, and for people with catastrophic injuries, it did not always live up to its promise of providing the support necessary to rebuild a life. I knew virtually nothing about automobile insurance law. My family was at its wits’ end. I had no political career, no public profile and no name that would have meant anything to anyone.

A friend suggested I speak to Sid Green.

“Sid is the kind of guy who will take this up,” I was told.

That turned out to be an understatement.

I could not afford to pay Sid. That did not seem to matter to him. When we met, he understood the issues almost immediately. I have met a lot of intelligent and accomplished people in my life, but I have rarely encountered anyone as tenacious — or as ingenious in constructing an argument — as Sid Green.

He had an extraordinary ability to look at a system, strip away the assumptions everyone else had accepted and ask the most basic question: does this actually make sense?

Sid’s help was instrumental in bringing multiple issues before Manitoba’s automobile injury compensation appeal process. When matters did not go well there, he took cases to the Manitoba Court of Appeal. Twice he sought leave to appeal matters arising from my cases to the Supreme Court of Canada.

He did not always win. That never seemed to discourage him very much.

Sid’s efforts helped lead to major changes to Manitoba’s public automobile insurance legislation and regulations affecting catastrophically injured people. The impact of that work went well beyond me. People Sid would never meet have benefited, and will continue to benefit, because he was prepared to take seriously the circumstances of a 23-year-old quadriplegic whom almost nobody knew.

More than that, Sid became my friend and mentor. Looking back, I realize that some of my own philosophy was shaped by Sid Green: look at things critically, question assumptions, but always try to offer a solution. And yes, sometimes doing so will be unpopular in certain circles.

Sid understood that popularity and correctness were not the same thing.

People have spent decades trying to label him politically. Was he left-wing? Right-wing? Perhaps he was so right-wing that he became left-wing, or so left-wing that he came around the other side.

Or perhaps Sid was simply Sid.

He was almost impossible to label because he insisted on thinking for himself. What was consistent was his integrity, his intelligence and, perhaps less visible beneath that famously combative exterior, his empathy.

When I first met Sid Green, my circumstances felt nearly hopeless.

Sid helped turn hopelessness into hope.

He changed my life. Through the law and public policy changes his work helped bring about, he changed the lives of many others as well. That is a legacy worth celebrating.

Steven J. Fletcher is the former MP for Charleswood – St. James-Assiniboia and former MLA for Assiniboia.