A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography: Brief biographies of persons distinguished in the professional, military and political life, and the commerce and industry of Canada, in the twentieth century
History
A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography: Brief biographies of persons distinguished in the professional, military and political life, and the commerce and industry of Canada, in the twentieth century
Canada -- Biography
since deeply interested himself, with his associate Commissioners, in
the laying out of the Battlefields Park, which is still in course of
completion as one of the most striking of Canada’s historic landmarks.
His zeal as an overseer of that enterprise and the interest he took in
the events of the Celebration, graced, as it was, by the presence of the
Prince of Wales, now King George V, and other notables of Canada and the
Motherland, was signalized by the honor of knighthood at the hands of
King Edward VII, an honor subsequently supplemented by the President of
the French Republic, in the bestowal of the Legion of Honor. On the
creation of the Quebec Public Utilities Commission, in 1910, he was
appointed member of the same and acting President, the appointment being
extended for a period of ten years. His career has been marked by the
holding of many other high positions connected with the progress of his
native city. For a time he was a Director of the Railway Company, under
which he had been in his earlier years a civil engineer. He has been
Director of the Prudential Trust Company, a Director of the Quebec
Steamship Company, a member of the Advisory Board of the Richelieu and
Ontario Navigation Company, a Director of the Quebec Land Company, and a
Governor of Laval University. His brother, the Hon. E. B. Garneau, was
appointed to the Legislative Council on the death of his father. Since
the demise of both of them, Sir George has continued to be President of
the firm of “Garneau Limited.” He was married in 1892, to Miss Alma
Benoit, daughter of Alphonse Benoit, for many years Secretary of the
Department of Militia and Defence of Canada. His family consists of five
sons and three daughters. In these later years Sir George has taken a
deep interest in the Entente Conferences for the promotion of unity
between the two distinctive races of Canada; and during the Toronto
Conference, he was received at a special Convocation of the University
of Toronto, and had the honor of LL.D. conferred upon him. The ancestors
of the Garneau family came originally from France in 1663; and the
subject of this sketch as a French-Canadian, using the French and
English languages with equal facility, has never failed to acknowledge
himself as an all-Canadian, devoted to the cause of a common
Canadianism, under the aegis of the British Empire. He also served in
the Canadian Militia, from which he retired with the rank of Captain of
Field Artillery in 1894.
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