John (Jack) Davis, (July 31 1916 – March 27 1991) was a Canadian
politician
from British Columbia who was elected both federally and
provincially.
Early life and education
Born in
Kamloops General Hospital, in Kamloops
, British
Columbia
, Davis grew
up in Tranquille Valley on a homestead where he attended school in
a one room log cabin. The Davis family moved into Kamloops
so that Davis could attend Grade 8 at Kamloops High School; he was
elected student council president, as was his sister Ethel Davis
Moore. Jack won provincial scholarships in junior and senior
matriculation, the latter with the highest marks in B.C.
Jack
attended the University of British Columbia
, where he was president of the Engineers and the
Men's Undergraduate Society, and a member of U.B.C.
Thunderbird Basketball team, which won the Canadian Men's Senior
Championship. He graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science
(chemical engineering) and was chosen a
Rhodes Scholar from British Columbia in
1939.
His
attendance at St John's College
, Oxford University
, was interrupted by the Second World War. Davis was the only
engineer on a Canadian research team at a McGill
University
developing a
new process for manufacturing RDX.
Writing up the RDX process gave Jack his PhD in Science in
1942.
Political career
In 1962,
Davis was elected to the Canadian House of Commons representing the
riding of Coast—Capilano, a riding which stretched from Deep Cove
in North Vancouver to Powell River and Pemberton
. A member of the then-minority
Liberal Party of Canada, he was
re-elected in the following year in the train of the national
Liberal victory and was appointed as the Parliamentary Secretary to
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Davis was re-elected in the
Canadian federal elections of 1965 and 1968 (now in the riding of
Capilano (electoral district) and 1972. A
cabinet minister in the government of
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, he was Minister
without Portfolio, Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Fisheries and
Forestry, and the first Minister of the Environment in the
English-speaking world. He was defeated in the Canadian federal
election of 1974.
In the
British Columbia
provincial election of 1975, he was elected to the Legislative
Assembly of British Columbia
as a member of the British Columbia Social
Credit Party representing the district of North Vancouver-Seymour. He
was sworn in as the Minister of Transport and Communication in the
new
Bill Bennett government. He
resigned in 1978 but was re-elected in the
British Columbia general
election, 1979,
British Columbia general
election, 1983,
British Columbia general
election, 1986. Davis was also a cabinet minister in the
government of
Bill Vander Zalm and
was Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources when he died
in office in 1991.
An energy audit prepared for Alternative Energy Policy Branch of
the Ministry of Energy and Mines in 2005 found that the Jack Davis
Building at 1810 Blanshard Street in Victoria was currently
operating at a high level of energy efficiency. The initial design
of the building, which won the building acclaim upon completion in
1992, is still reaping the benefits of energy efficient
construction via low energy expenditures.
Legacy
There are two scholarships to UBC awarded in memory of Davis. The
Jack Davis Scholarship in Energy Studies is a $5,200 scholarship
that has been endowed by Westcoast Energy Inc. in memory of the
Honourable Jack Davis. The award is made to a graduate student in
energy studies at the University of British Columbia. The second
Jack Davis scholarship is awarded annually to an outstanding
all-round North Shore secondary school graduate to assist in his or
her entering the University of British Columbia.
External links
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