Before being appointed to the Chair of SIRC in 1989, John Bassett already remarkable career as a broadcaster, entrepreneur, soldier, newspaper publisher and journalist.
Born in Ottawa in 1915, he studied at the University of Bishop’s College, he is a journalist with The Globe and Mail until 1940, when he joined the Canadian Armed Forces and served overseas in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada during the Second World War.
Throughout the ’50s and ’60s, Mr. Bassett built a media empire in Canada, first by acquiring major Canadian newspapers including the Toronto Telegram, then the group leader Baton Broadcasting that will launch the first station private television in Canada, CFTO-TV. It later became the head of the CTV Television Network Ltd… As an entrepreneur in the field of sports, Mr. Bassett chairs the board of Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and one of the football team of the Toronto Argonauts.
In 1985, Mr. Bassett is an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1989 he became president of the SIRC and joined the Privy Council of Canada. In 1992 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada, having been elevated to the Order of Ontario (1989). He is also Honorary Director of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario.
John Bassett died at the age of 82 in April 1998. In November 2000 he was posthumously elevated to the Order of Merit of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
John Bassett
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