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Obituary: Hank Canvin – figures large in Kirkland history

If children got skates for Christmas, he thought they should use them immediately. So he fixed up the rinks

ALAN HUSTAK
The Gazette
Sunday, July 27, 2008

As one of the founders of the Town of Kirkland, Hank Canvin
has a street and a park in the West Island community named for him.

 

Canvin worked in the airline industry for 62 years before he
retired two years ago. He was 87 when he died of leukemia at the
Atlantic Baptist Home in Charlottetown on June 27.

"He was a big, tall man - a friendly giant," said Kirkland mayor
John Meaney, who considered Canvin a political mentor.

"He was so involved in the community. If you want to know what kind
of a guy he was, we had four outdoor skating rinks in Kirkland and
he personally made it his duty to have everyone of those rinks in
shape on Christmas morning. He believed that kids who got skates for
Christmas shouldn't have to wait to use them.

"During the whole municipal demerger process, when he was in his
early 80s, he would call me and say 'how can I help?' He went door
to door to fight for Kirkland's name and for its autonomy." Harold
Joseph Canvin, the son of a Canadian Pacific Railway employee, was
born in Outremont April 13, 1921. He attended Strathcona High
School.

As soon as he got his diploma he went into the Royal Canadian Air
Force.

He played defence with the air force hockey team, where he was
paired with Sid Abel, who went on to become a star with the Detroit
Red Wings.

Canvin's airline industry career began in 1945 as a reservations
clerk with Colonial Airlines.

A year later he transferred to Northeast Airlines.

In the early 1950s he moved to what was then an isolated
agricultural parish on the West Island.

"Everyone thought he was nuts moving out to the middle of nowhere
and spending $5,000 to buy the land and build a house," his son,
Craig, recalled. The area became the Town of Kirkland in 1961.

"He would fondly reminisce about the early days of Kirkland, and
how he and Marcel Meloche and André Brunet (the original owners of
the land) mapped out its streets and subdivisions in the middle of
our living room." Originally the new municipality was to be called
Léger, in honour of Roman Catholic Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger. After
much debate, however, it was named for Dr. Charles-Aimé Kirkland,
the district's long time Liberal member of the Quebec legislature.

In 1963 Canvin was promoted Delta's general sales manager with a
head office in Boston. He refused to move and commuted to the job
from Montreal.

"He often joked it was faster to fly between the two cities than it
was to drive during rush hour between Kirkland and downtown
Montreal," his son, Craig, said.

Canvin returned to Montreal permanently in 1967 as the airline's
Canadian regional director. When Northeast became part of Delta
Airlines in 1972, he was named director of Canadian operations.

"He particularly impressed me with the breadth of his knowledge and
passion for Delta Air Lines, for the aviation industry in general,
with his communication skills, his enthusiasm, his sense of humour
and his firm handshake," said Alice Chaurest, Delta's Multinational
Account Manager.

"He always kept up with the times. Even in his 80s he became
proficient with the e-mail on his computer - or 'the machine' as he
referred to it. He was well respected throughout the industry."
Canvin served as a Kirkland town councillor on the finance and
recreation committees for 17 years.

"Finance was his least stressful portfolio," said former town
manager André Houde.

"He really took the recreation portfolio to heart. He excelled at
sports. He'd shovel the snow off the rinks, then stick around as a
coach or referee the hockey games. He really was an amazing fellow.
He had fantastic judgment." His wife of 58 years, Audrey Plain, died
four years ago.

He leaves his two children, Grant and Craig.