CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Colin Deacon

Canadian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ55081560
Source-derived summary

Colin Deacon (born November 1, 1959) is a Canadian entrepreneur and politician from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was appointed to the Senate of Canada on June 15, 2018.

Life and career

Before the Senate

Before his appointment to the Senate, Deacon was an entrepreneur in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From 1997 to 2006, Deacon was the CEO of SpellRead, an evidence-based reading program that taught Canadian and American teachers how to teach reading. He is the founder and former CEO of BlueLight Analytics, which offers technical products to dentists, researchers and dental manufacturers.

Deacon has served as Vice-Chair of the Board of the Kids Brain Health Network and was a member of the board of the Halifax Assistance Fund, which works to help community members in need.

Senate of Canada

On June 15, 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Deacon's appointment to the Senate of Canada. Deacon was recommended by the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments and was chosen through an open application process based on merit-based criteria requirements under the Constitution of Canada.

Since 2018, Deacon has been a member of the Standing Senate Committees on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, as well as Agriculture and Forestry, and formerly served as Deputy Chair for both committees. He is a member of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and served as Chair of the Canadian Chapter of the Network from 2019 to March 2023.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Colin Deacon” as canadian politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Colin, Deacon and Canadian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1959, 2018, 1997, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1959-11-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Colin, Deacon and Canadian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Colin Deacon”, the useful work is to connect “canadian politician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55081560. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959, 2018, 1997 and 2006.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Colin Deacon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Colin Deacon primary sources, Colin Deacon archive and Colin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colin Deacon”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Colin Deacon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.