Elizabeth Dowdeswell

Early life

Dowdeswell (née Patton) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, on November 9, 1944, and moved with her family to Canada in 1947, settling in rural Saskatchewan. Her father Desmond Granville Patton (1920-2008) was a United Church of Canada minister. Dowdeswell married at a young age but soon divorced. She attended the University of Saskatchewan and Utah State University and later became a teacher and university lecturer.

Career

Dowdeswell left teaching and entered public service, serving in Saskatchewan as deputy minister of culture and youth during the New Democratic Party government of Allan Blakeney, but was dismissed, along with other deputy ministers, after the Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine took power in 1982.

She served in the federal public service in the 1980s, serving at one point as assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada with responsibility for the Atmospheric Environment Service and negotiating the Framework Convention on Climate Change. She also led a public inquiry into Canada’s unemployment benefits program and federal water policy.

In 1992, Dowdeswell was unanimously elected to lead the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya, serving there until 1998 at the rank of Under-Secretary-General.

From 1998 to 2010, she was an adjunct professor at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health at the University of Toronto, while also serving as founding president and CEO of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. From 2010 until her appointment at Lieutenant Governor, she was the president and CEO of the Council of Canadian Academies.

As Lieutenant Governor

Dowdeswell was appointed Lieutenant Governor by Governor General David Johnston on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who selected Dowdeswell from a shortlist devised by the Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments. On September 23, 2014, she was sworn in during a ceremony held at Queen's Park in Toronto, during which she addressed members of the Ontario Cabinet, Members of Provincial Parliament, and other guests. She is the third woman to serve the position, following Pauline Mills McGibbon and Hilary Weston.

Breaking with tradition, Dowdeswell declared in her installation address that she would not immediately espouse a particular area of focus during her mandate as Lieutenant Governor. Instead, she set out to engage the people of Ontario, listening to their concerns and ideas. In the time since her installation, she had said that the idea of Ontario in the world, as well as the interconnected themes of sustainability—environmental stewardship, inclusive economic prosperity and innovation, and social and cultural inclusion—have resonated with Ontarians. In addition, Dowdeswell has taken to sharing what she hears during her visits around Ontario, dubbing herself "Storyteller-in-Chief".

In April 2016, Dowdeswell reported having undertaken 1,066 official engagements during the first 18 months of her mandate, an average of 711 per year.

On September 12, 2016, Dowdeswell read a Speech from the Throne to open the 2nd session of the 41st Parliament of Ontario. It was her first Throne Speech since taking office in September 2014.

Titles

As Lieutenant Governor, Dowdeswell is entitled to be styled Her Honour while in office and The Honourable for life.

Honours

Honorary Degrees

Elizabeth Dowdeswell has received several honorary degrees from various Universities in Canada and Europe. These include: