BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES re SQUADRON LEADER JEAN N. CANTIN
June 19th, 1942
Squadron Leader Jean N. Cantin, who is well known in Canadian Business and Parliamentary circles, and who has formed part of the Personnel Branch of No. 3 Training Command Headquarters since his enlistment in the Royal Canadian Air Force the forepart of 1940, has been appointed to the post of Camp Commandant and Commanding Officer of No. 3 Training Command Administrative Unit, with Headquarters in Montreal.
Squadron Leader Cantin attended the Public Schools of Ontario, is a graduate of Mount St. Louis College, Montreal, The Royal Military College of Canada, and McGill University. He also attended the first Administrative Course given by the R.C.A.F. School of Administration at Trenton, Ont.
A Veteran of the las War, he served from 1914 to 1919, first enlisting as a Cavalry Officer in the 7th Canadian Mounted Rifles.
Squadron Leader Cantin prepared the first syllabus of systematic Physical Training instruction for the introduction of Physical Training in the regular Army training syllabus of the Great War.
Previous to going Overseas, he was attached to Military District No. 1 Headquarters at London, Ont., as Officer in charge of all Training and Commandant of the Royal School of Infantry, which he organized and through which, during his tenure of office, thousands of Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers qualified for active service Overseas.
The courses which Squadron Leader Cantin instituted were so thorough that Officers taking same were in most instances posted directly to service in France.
Upon relinquishing his Administrative duties at No. 1 Military District, Squadron Leader Cantin served in the Royal Canadian Artillery, and as Adjutant of the 2nd Canadian Tank Battalion Overseas.
An Engineer by profession, Squadron Leader Cantin in private life was associated with his father, the late Mr. Narcisse M. Cantin, in the original promotion of the Beauharnois Power project and the development of the St. Lawrence River as a deep navigable water way for Ocean liners to the Great Lakes.
His home is in St. Joseph, Huron County, Ontario, a village founded by his father on the shores of Lake Huron and intended to be the terminal point of the Great Lakes-to-Ocean deep waterway.
J.N. Cantin, 62, St. Joseph, Dies
ST. JOSEPH, June 18 – Jean Narcisse Cantin, 62, son of the founder of the Lake Huron village and descendant of one of Canada’s oldest French families died early today at Westminster Hospital, London, Ont.
Mr. Cantin, accompanied by his wife, returned only a week ago to the village which in the eyes of his father was to have been a thriving Western Ontario city.
Since 1948, when Mr. Cantin retired from the Dominion Textiles at Montreal, he and his wife spent summers here and winters in the Quebec metropolis.
In Both Wars
A veteran of both world conflicts, Mr. Cantin served overseas during the first with the 64th Field Battery, CFA, and was instructor at the Royal School in London, reaching the rank of captain.
During World War II he was a staff officer at No. 3 RCAF Training Command, Montreal, with the rank of squadron leader.
He was educated at elementary schools in Montreal and graduated from the Royal Military College, Kingston.
During hos life, Mr. Cantin saw the dream of his father, Narcisse Cantin, dissolve.
Shortly before the turn of the century the senior Cantin was successful in interesting Government and financial authorities in the wind-swept Lake Huron location as a potential industrial city.
Hotel Balmoral
The …. progressed to the state where a large hotel was constructed and a pier built but lack of roads and harbor depth contributed to the dream evaporating. Closing chapter in the story took place some 30 years ago when the hotel was sold and material carried away by a wrecking company.
Members of a far-sighted family, both Cantin generations were early in proposing a Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway. Younger Cantin was an engineer by profession.
Following their arrival on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in the 1600’s, the Cantin family name was synonymous with Quebec. The family built ships at Montreal and later drydocks which for generations bore the name “Cantin.”
Born In Buffalo
Born in Buffalo, Mr. Cantin spent much of his life away from this village.
Surviving are his widow, three sisters, Mrs. John Woodcock, Montreal; Mrs. Albert Bourque, Detroit, and Mrs. Edward Laporte, St. Clair, Mich.; and two brothers, Joseph of this community, and Louis, of Montreal. A brother Napoleon died in April.
His father died in 1940 and his mother in 1948.
The body is at the Hoffman funeral home, Dashwood, until Monday when requiem high mass will be sung in St. Peter’s Church, at St. Joseph, by Msgr. Bourdeau at 10 a.m. (DST), and interment will be made in the parish cemetery, with full military honors.
