Thomas Worrall Kent (April 3, 1922 – November 15, 2011) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

-born

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

economist, journalist, and public servant who played a pivotal role in reshaping the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

in the 1960’s and served as a senior policy aide to Prime Minister

Lester B. Pearson Lester Bowles Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as Leader of the Liberal Party of C ...

. Born in

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, Kent graduated from

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517 by Richard Fo ...

, and worked as a journalist for

The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

and

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

. In 1954 he immigrated to Canada to become editor of the

Winnipeg Free Press The ''Free Press'' (or FP; founded as the ''Manitoba Free Press''; previously known as the ''Winnipeg Free Press'') is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, natio ...

. He later served as a key advisor to Prime Minister

, and was the architect of the federal Liberal revival of the 1960s. He was a leading thinker behind the socio-economic strategies of the 1970s, and served as deputy minister of immigration in the Pearson government. Kent served as president of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, and later of the Sydney Steel Corp. In 1980 he was appointed to chair the Royal Commission on Newspapers, which would become known as the Kent Commission. In 1979, he was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

and was promoted to Companion in 2001. In 1963, Kent stood for election in the British Columbia riding of Burnaby—Coquitlam, but was defeated by

Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Bap ...

.Sandra Martin, "Political Thinker Had a Passion for Canada", ''Globe and Mail'', December 10, 2011.
/ref> In his later years, Kent was a Fellow with Queen's University's School of Policy Studies.

References

External links

Thomas Worrall Kent
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

1922 births 2011 deaths Canadian economists Canadian male journalists Companions of the Order of Canada Journalists from Ontario Candidates in the 1963 Canadian federal election Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford British emigrants to Canada People from Stafford Academic staff of Queen's University at Kingston Liberal Party of Canada candidates for the Canadian House of Commons Canadian federal deputy ministers {{Canada-journalist-stub