Elizabeth Dowdeswell

Violet Elizabeth Dowdeswell (née Patton; born November 9, 1944) is a Canadian public servant who currently serves as the lieutenant governor of Ontario, the 29th since Canadian Confederation. As lieutenant governor, Dowdeswell is the viceregal representative of the Crown in Right of Ontario and the first in over seven decades to serve under two different Canadian sovereigns. She is also the longest-serving lieutenant governor in Ontario's history. Early life Violet Elizabeth Patton was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 9, 1944. She moved with her family to Canada in 1947, settling in rural Saskatchewan. Her father, Desmond Granville Patton (1920–2008), was a minister of the United Church of Canada. Dowdeswell married at a young age but soon divorced. She attended the University of Saskatchewan and Utah State University, and she later became a teacher and university lecturer. Career Dowdeswell left teaching and entered public service as a special assistant to Saskatchewan's deputy education minister for two years (1976-78), then worked as deputy minister of culture and youth during the New Democratic Party government of Allan Blakeney. She was then dismissed, along with other deputy ministers, after the Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine took power in 1982. She held various positions in the federal public service during the 1980s, working at one point as assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada with responsibility for the Atmospheric Environment Service and negotiating the Framework Convention on Climate Change. She also led a public inquiry into Canada's unemployment benefits program and federal water policy.