Tagged: Dominion

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Sculptor

In 1936, the Department of Public Works hired on a full-time Dominion Sculptor to finish the enormous task of covering nearly every surface of the Parliament buildings with intricate designs of cultural, historical or scientific relevance to Canada. Work stopped during World War II, but restarted in 1947 and continues to this day.

In 1993, the name of the position was officially changed to Federal Government Sculptor, but the old title of Dominion Sculptor is still in widespread use, even in official federal communications. At various times, the post has had a number of other names in governmental publications, including “Dominion Stone Carver” and “Parliamentary Sculptor”.

The Dominion Sculptors of Canada have been:

Cléophas Soucy, 1936-49.
William Frederick Karel Oosterhoff, 1949-62.
Rose Eleanor Milne CM, 1962-93.
Maurice Joanisse, 1993-2006.
Phil R. White, 2006-now.

Better know a Canadian institution: the Dominion Coal Board

In the early 20th century, coal, which played an important role in alternately employing and murdering Nova Scotians, was the main source of power in industry. For this reason, the Canadian government set up the Office of the Fuel Commissioner, to regulate its use for the industry in World War I. In 1922 the Dominion Fuel Board was set up to reduce Canada’s coal imports and increase domestic production of coal. From 1939 to 1947 the Dominion Fuel Board was abrogated and coal rationing for the war effort was placed under the command of the Coal Administrator (later the Coal Controller) in the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. The Dominion Fuel Board was briefly revived before being replaced that year by the Dominion Coal Board, which regulated the coal industry until declining coal production and a shift to using oil as fuel meant that specialized oversight for coal was less needed than it had been, and the Dominion Coal Board was dissolved in 1970.

The persons controlling coal in Canada were:

Charles Alexander Magrath, Fuel Controller of Canada, 1917-22.

Dr. Charles Camsell CMG FRSC, Chairman of the Dominion Fuel Board, 1922-39.

James McGregor Stewart CBE, Coal Administrator of Canada, 1939-43.

Ernest John Brunning CBE, Coal Controller of Canada, 1943-47.

Vincent William Thomas Scully CMG, Chairman of the Dominion Fuel Board, 1947.

Wilbur Edward Uren OBE, Chairman of the Dominion Coal Board, 1947-61.

Colin Lewis O’Brien, Chairman of the Dominion Coal Board, 1961-66.

John Watson MacNaught, Chairman of the Dominion Coal Board, 1966-70.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Fire Commissioner

After Parliament burnt down in 1916, a Commission of Conservation was formed under former Minister of the Interior Sir Clifford Sifton to study the state of fire prevention and firefighting in Canada. The committee’s report, Fire Waste in Canada, was published in 1918 and threw damning light on the inadequacy of co-ordination of fire regulations and of the reporting of the economic losses in Canada from fires. In 1919 the Office of the Dominion Fire Commissioner was set up in the Department of Public works to improve national firefighting standards, research new fire prevention methods, and compile an annual summary of financial losses from fire in Canada.

The Dominion Fire Commissioner was renamed the Fire Commissioner of Canada in 1982 and transferred to the Department of Labour in 1986 before the office was abolished and merged into the Occupational Health and Safety division of Human Resources and Development Canada in 1992. The annual list of fire losses was never required by federal law, and a combination of federal budget cuts and improved fire loss reporting at the provincial level meant that HRDC stopped publishing the annual Fire Losses in Canada reports in 2002.

The Dominion Fire Commissioners and Fire Commissioners of Canada were:

Joseph Grove Smith, 1919-39.
Wilfrid Laurier Clairmont, 1939-49.
Christian A. Thomson, 1949-58.
Ross A.W. Switzer, 1958-78.
G. Alexander Hope, 1978-86.
Thomas J. Dunfield, 1986-92.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Chair of the Parole Board of Canada

Before 1899 in Canada, there was no such thing as parole: either you got let out of jail early for good behaviour or you stayed in for the whole sentence. In 1899, the Laurier government introduced a “ticket to leave” system of parole, which was issued at the discretion of the Department of Justice. These were issued in a haphazard way by communication between prison wardens and Justice officials until the appointment of Walter Archibald, a brigadier of the Salvation Army, as the first Dominion Parole Officer in 1905. His job was to travel between the federal prisons in Canada (there were seven at the time) and conduct interviews with guards and inmates to decide if parole should be granted.

In 1913 the Department of Justice formed the Remission Service to process parole claims. The office of the Dominion Parole Officer was dissolved in 1931, and its functions absorbed by the Remission Service.

In 1959 the Parole Board Act dissolved the Remission Service and moved the granting of parole from the Department of Justice to an arm’s-length body, the Parole Board of Canada. The PBC was completely self-contained until 1978, when it was placed under the authority of Correctional Services Canada.

The Dominion Parole Officers of Canada were:

Walter Palmer Archibald, 1905-22.
Robert R. Creighton, 1922-27.
R.F. Harris, 1927-31.

The Chiefs of the Remission Service, Department of Justice, were:

Pierre Martial Côté, 1913-18.
J.D. Clarke, 1918-24.
M.F. Gallagher, 1924-52.
A.A. Moffat, 1952-53.
Allan J. MacLeod, 1953-59.

The Chairs of the Parole Board of Canada have been:

Thomas George Street, 1959-74.
William Outerbridge, 1974-86.
Ole Ingstrup, 1986-88.
Fred Gibson, 1988-93.
Michel Dagenais, 1993-94.
William Gibbs, 1994-2000.
Ian Glen, 2001-06.
Mario Dion, 2006-09.
Harvey Cenaiko, 2009-now.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Hydrographer

Hydrography is the practice of making nautical maps and navigation charts. The Royal Navy, in olden days, mapped much of the eastern Canadian coast, as it did with the coasts of most of the Empire. The Canadian government did not give much thought to charting inland waters until 1882, when the steamer SS Asia struck an uncharted shoal in Georgian Bay and sank, killing 150. In response, the government set up the Georgian Bay Survey, which charged the Surveyor-General with charting the beds of the Great Lakes, then the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, then charting tides and currents and the seasonal level variances of the Great Lakes, until it was finally renamed the Hydrographic Survey of Canada in 1904, changing its name to the Canadian Hydrographic Survey in 1928.

With the retirement of Surveyor-General F.H. Peters in 1948, the CHS was spun off and placed under the command of the Dominion Hydrographer. This title is still officially in use, although most government communication uses the job’s other title, the Director of the Canadian Hydrographic Survey.

The Dominion Hydrographers have been:

R.J. Fraser, 1948-52.
Frank Clifford Goulding Smith, 1952-57.
Norman Gerald Gray, 1957-67.
Arthur E. Collin, 1967-72.
Gerald Neil Ewing, 1972-79.
Stephen B. McPhee (1st time), 1979-87.
G. Ross Douglas, 1987-94.
Stephen B. MacPhee (2nd time), 1994-98.
Anthony David O’Connor, 1998-2002.
Denis Hains (1st time), 2002-04 (acting)
Savithri Narayanan, 2005-14.
Denis Hains (2nd time), 2014-now.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Carillonneur

In 1916 the Parliament of Canada burned down. When they rebuilt it they added the Peace Tower (officially the Tower of Victory and Peace), a giant clock tower dedicated to Canada’s war dead. Its exterior was done by 1922, but the interior took more time, and was inaugurated on the 60th anniversary of Confederation on 1 July 1927. The new tower was equipped with a carillon, which is an array of bells (53 of them in the Peace Tower) connected to a sort of keyboard-like thing to play them with. Parliament then hired a person to play concerts on the bells, a position named the Dominion Carillonneur.

The Dominion Carillonneur is the sole position in the Canadian government which still contains the name “Dominion”, and has no other name. (The one other office with “Dominion”, the Dominion Hydrographer, is often referred to by its alternate title, the Director of the Canadian Hydrographic Service.)

The Dominion Carillonneurs have been:

Frank Percival Price (1901-85), 1927-39. Born in Toronto, Price studied music in Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, then became the first professional carillonneur outside Europe in 1921 when he was hired to play the bells of the massive neo-gothic Metropolitan Wesleyan Methodist Church (now the Metropolitan United Church) in the Garden District of Toronto. Being the only professional carillonneur in the country, and indeed in the New World, he was a natural candidate as the inaugural Dominion Carillonneur. In the time he served, he composed a number of works for carillon and some without, the most notable being his Saint Lawrence Symphony of 1934. He quit as Dominion Carillonneur in 1939 and spent the next 33 years as a professor of music at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Robert Donnell (1910-86), 1939-75. Born in Toronto, Donnell studied music at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and learned the carillon in Guelph, at the University of Toronto, as an assistant to Percival Price in the Peace Tower, and in Belgium. Donnell succeeded Price as Dominion Carillonneur in 1939 and stayed until 1975, when he went on to play the Rainbow Tower Carillon in Niagara Falls. Donnell also composed the music to “This Canada of Ours”, a patriotic song with moderate popularity in the mid-20th century.

Émilien Allard (1915-77), 1975-77. Allard was born in Montreal and grew up in Grand-Mère, QC, where he learned his first instrument, the clarinet. He studied music at Université Laval and the Conservatoire National de Musique in Montreal, served in the air force in WWII (where he played clarinet in the RCAF Band) and then studied the carillon in Belgium, with additional musical training at the Conservatoire de Paris. He served as the carillonneur of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal from 1955 to 1975, leaving to take the post of Dominion Carillonneur, which he held until he died two years later.

Gordon Frederick Slater (1950-now), 1977-2008. Born in Toronto, Slater studied piano and double bassoon at U of T and the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto. He learned the carillon from his father, James B. Slater, the carillonneur of the Metropolitan United Church in Toronto. Gordon Slater apprenticed to a number of carillonneurs, including Robert Donnell in the Peace Tower, and spent much of the 1970s building and repairing pipe organs at a factory in Toronto.

Dr. Andrea McCrady MD (1953-now), 2008-now. Dr. McCrady was born in Pittsburgh and travelled to Holland, Belgium and France to learn the carillon while studying at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She then earned a medical degree from McGill (where she played the bells of St. Joseph’s Oratory part-time) and completed her medical residency in Toronto (where she played at the CNE) before setting up a family practice in Spokane, WA, for 18 years. She retired from medicine in 2006 and earned a BA in music from the University of Denver and was soon after hired as Dominion Carillonneur. Dr. McCrady also sings in the National Arts Centre Festival Chorus.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Geodesist

Land surveying in Canada falls under the purview of the Surveyor-General of Canada, as I’ve said before. But surveying depends on a lot of basic measurements and calculations of measurements of the Earth to take into account when surveying, things like differing sea levels or regional variances in the Earth’s gravitational pull or its magnetic field.

The branch of applied mathematics that involve changes in the Earth’s attributes is called geodesy, or geodetics. In 1909, the Dominion Observatory was tasked with beginning a survey of geodetic information in Canada, with the Dominion Astronomer, W.F. King, as Superintendent of the Geodetic Survey of Canada. In 1916 the Survey was separated from the Observatory, and in 1923 the Superintendent was changed to the Director of the Geodetic Survey of Canada, and changed again in 1936 to the Dominion Geodesist. This title was used until 1995, when the Geodetic Survey of Canada’s name was changed to the Canadian Geodetic Survey, and the Dominion Geodesist became the Director of the Canadian Geodetic Survey.

The SGSCs/DGSCs/Dominion Geodesists/DCGSs of Canada have been:

William Frederick King CMG, 1909-16.
Noel J. Ogilvie, 1917-46.
John Leslie Rannie, 1947-51.
J.E.R. Ross, 1951-57.
J.E. Lilly, 1957-67.
L.A. Gale, 1967-74.
L.J. O’Brien, 1974-86.
George Babbage, 1987-89.
David Boal, 1989-95.
Mark Corey, 1995-96 (acting)
Cyril Penton, 1996-97 (acting)
Denis Hains (1st time), 1997-2001.
Robert Laframboise, 2001-04.
Jean Robert Duval, 2004-05 (acting)
Stuart Salter, 2005-07 (acting)
Denis Hains (2nd time), 2007-14.
Pierre Héroux, 2014-now (acting)

Better know a Canadian functionary: the CEO of Parks Canada and its antecedents

Canada’s first national park, Banff National Park, was founded in 1885. At the time, it was administered through the Dominion Lands Bureau of the Department of the Interior. After five more national parks were founded (Glacier, Yoho, Waterton Lakes, Thousand Islands and Jasper) their responsibility was transferred to the Forestry and Irrigation Branch in 1908 before the Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act of 1911 established the independent Dominion Parks Branch, the first standalone national parks authority in the world. (The USA’s National Parks Service was founded by act of Congress in 1916.) The Dominion Parks Branch went on to take control of Canada’s national historic sites when it founded the Advisory Board for Historic Site Preservation in 1919 (later renamed the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada); its first site was a place near Port Dover, ON, where Lake Erie was claimed for France in 1670.

The national parks administrator has had many renamings. From the original Dominion Parks Branch in 1911, it was known as the Canadian National Parks Branch in 1921, the National Parks Branch in 1926, the National Parks Bureau in 1936, the National Parks Service in 1947, the National and Historic Sites Division in January 1950, back to the National Parks Branch in November 1950, the National and Historic Resources Branch in 1965, the National and Historic Parks Branch in 1966, the Parks Canada Program in 1973, the Canadian Parks Services Branch in 1984, and the Parks Canada Agency in 1998. It was a part of the Department of the Interior until 1936, when it moved to the Department of Mines and Resources, then to the Department of Resources and Development in 1950, the Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources in 1953, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in 1966, the Department of the Environment in 1979, the Department of Canadian Heritage in 1994, and back to Environment Canada in 2003.

The heads of the incarnations of Parks Canada have been known as the Commissioner (1911-36), the Controller (1936-50), the Chief (Jan-Nov 1950), the Director (1950-1973), the Director-General (1973-98) and the CEO (since 1998). Those people have been:

James Bernard Harkin, 1911-36.
Frank H.H. Williamson, 1936-41.
James Smart, 1941-53.
James A. Hutchinson, 1953-57.
J.K.B. Coleman, 1957-68.
John I. Nicol, 1968-78.
Al Davidson, 1978-85.
J.D. Collinson, 1985-90.
Aimée Lefebvre-Anglin, 1990-93.
Tom Lee, 1993-2002.
Alan Latourelle, 2002-now.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Director General of the Dominion Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service

The first wildlife conservation legislation in Canada was the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1917. Federal administration of wildlife regulations (an area mostly under the jurisdiction of the provinces) was handled by the Department of the Interior until 1936, and then by the Department of Mines and Resources, who reorganized its wildlife officials in 1947 to form the Dominion Wildlife Service. When the department was reorganized into the Department of Resources and Development in 1950, the DWS was renamed the Canadian Wildlife Service. Through the 1950s and 1960s, the CWS became more involved in environmental science and conservation research, as it was moved to the Department of Northern affairs and Natural Resources in 1953, then to the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources in 1966 until it was finally moved to the Department of the Environment when it was founded in 1971, and was given increased powers to declare protected National Wildlife Areas by the Canada Wildlife Act of 1973. It was during this time that the CWS commissioned their most lasting gift to Canadian culture.

(The CWS, in partnership with the National Film Board, began producing the Hinterland Who’s Who series in 1963, and continued into the 1980s. The name of the piece of music played on the flute is Flute Poem, by John Cacavas. The ads were narrated by John Livingston, a naturalist and producer on CBC’s The Nature of Things. The CWS has nothing to do with the new Hinterland Who’s Who spots made since 2003, which are produced by the nonprofit Canadian Wildlife Federation.)

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the CWS lost most of its public outreach programs and its independent research and scientific functions to other branches of Environment Canada. Today it mostly administers the National Wildlife Areas, executes the provisions of the Species at Risk Act of 2002, and commands the federal game wardens.

The CWS is headed by a Director-General, who reports to the Associate Deputy Minister for Environmental Sustainability, who reports to the Deputy Minister of the Environment.

The Directors-General of the Dominion/Canadian Wildlife Service have been:

Harrison Flint Lewis, 1947-52.
W. Winston Mair, 1952-63.
David A. Munro, 1963-69.
John S. Tener, 1969-74.
Alan George Loughrey, 1974-81.
Bertrand Tétrault, 1981-86.
H. Anthony Clarke, 1986-91.
David Brackett, 1991-2002.
Trevor Swerdferger, 2002-06.
Michele Brenning, 2006-07.
Virginia Poter, 2007-now.

Better know a Canadian functionary: the Dominion Archivist of Canada, National Archivist of Canada and Librarian and Archivist of Canada

In 1872 the Canadian government set up a national archives system as a division of the Department of Agriculture. (Apparently, in the early days the Department of Agriculture had a lot of extra capacity: the Department of Agriculture’s original mandate covered everything from public health to trade regulation to the patent office.) It was made into the a separate entity, the Public Archives of Canada, in 1912, renamed the National Archives of Canada in 1987, and merged with the National Library to form Library and Archives Canada in 2004, which reports to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its head was named the Dominion Archivist from 1872 to 1987, the National Archivist from 1987 to 2004, and the Librarian and Archivist of Canada since 2004.

The Dominion/National Archivists of Canada/Librarian and Archivists of Canada have been:

Douglas Brymner, 1872–1902. A Scottish immigrant who served as mayor of Melbourne, Richmond Cty., Que., Brymner was on the editorial staff of the Montreal Herald before he was summoned to Ottawa, given an empty room and a budget of $4000 per year, and told to build an archives. His first acquisition was the British Army records for the Halifax garrison from 1759 to 1871. Over 30 years, Brymner amassed a huge quantity of colonial records, dating as far back as 1603. He died in office in 1902. His son, William Brymner CMG, was a noted painter and president of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Alphonse Audet (interim), 1902-04.

Sir Arthur George Doughty KBE CMG, 1904–35. A posh Englishman with a public-school and Oxford education, Sir Arthur came to Montreal at the age of 26. He worked in the revenue department of the government of Quebec , then became private secretary to the Minister of Public Works. In 1900, he was named joint librarian of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec before becoming Dominion Archivist four years later. In 1908, Sir Arthur oversaw the construction of a handsome stone archival headquarters on Sussex Drive in Ottawa. (The building later became the War Museum, and is now vacant.) Doughty was very close friends with Mackezie King; they shared a fascination with spirituality, and it’s believed that Doughty introduced King to the idea of communicating with the dead via table-rapping. Sir Arthur retired in 1935, dying the next year; there’s a statue of him behind the National Library, in Ottawa.

Dr. James Francis Kenney (interim), 1935-37.

Gustave Lanctôt OC, 1937–48. A lawyer, Rhodes scholar, Oxford graduate, WWI veteran, and earner of a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, Dr. Lanctôt was a very active historian, writing several books and teaching at the University of Ottawa. He was one of the first inductees to the Order of Canada, and was a knight of the Légion d’Honneur.

William Kaye Lamb OC, 1948–68. Born in New Westminster, BC, he went to University of British Columbia before getting a Ph.D. from the LSE. Dr. Lamb was Provincial Archivist and Librarian of British Columbia, Superintendent of the BC Public Libraries Commission, and University Librarian of UBC before becoming Dominion Archivist. Dr. Lamb was also concurrently National Librarian from 1953 to 1968.

Wilfred I. Smith OC, 1968–84. A Nova Scotian with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Smith joined the Archives in 1950, was appointed acting Dominion Archivist in 1968, and given the job permanently in 1970.

Jean-Pierre Wallot OC, 1985–97. Dr. Wallot had a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal and served in a number of senior positions in its history department before going to the Archives. Wallot was the first to change his title from Dominion Archivist to National Archivist.

Ian E. Wilson CM, 1999–2009. Wilson got a master’s in history from Queen’s and was Provincial Archivist of Saskatchewan. Wilson oversaw the merger of the National Archives with the National Library to form Library and Archives Canada in 2004.

Daniel J. Caron, 2009–13. Dr. Caron has a Ph.D. in Applied Human Sciences from the Université de Montréal, specializing in Aboriginal culture. He worked in a wide range of federal departments for over 20 years before joining the Archives in 2003. Dr. Caron resigned in disgrace in May 2013, after it was revealed he spent $5000 in taxpayer funds on private Spanish lessons.

Hervé Déry (interim), 2013-now. Déry has a master’s in economics from the Université de Montréal and has worked for the federal government since 1982. In March 2012 he became Assistant Deputy Minister and Corporate Secretary of the Policy and Collaboration Sector of Library and Archives Canada, and was appointed as the acting Librarian and Archivist of Canada in May 2013.