The Honourable James K. Bartleman
27th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

The Honourable James Karl Bartleman was sworn in as the 27th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario on March 7, 2002. He is the province’s 41st vice-regal representative since John Graves Simcoe’s arrival in Upper Canada in 1792. Mr. Bartleman completed his term as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario on September 5, 2007. He has since been appointed the new Chancellor of the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD).

Mr. Bartleman identified three areas of focus for his mandate: to encourage Aboriginal communities, especially young people; to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness; and to support initiatives that fight racism and discrimination. In 2004 he launched the first Lieutenant Governor’s Book Drive, which collected 1.2 million good used books for First Nations schools and Native Friendship Centres throughout Ontario. To further encourage literacy and bridge building, in 2005 Mr. Bartleman launched a Twinning Program for Native and non-Native schools in Ontario and Nunavut, and established literacy summer camps in five northern First Nations communities as a pilot project. In 2006 he extended his literacy summer camps program to 28 fly-in communities and secured funding for five years, and he also launched Club Amick, a reading club for Native children in Ontario’s North. In the winter of 2007, he completed a second Book Drive, collecting 900,000 books for Aboriginal children in Ontario, northern Quebec and Nunavut.

Upon his installation as Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Bartleman became Chancellor and a member of the Order of Ontario. He was promoted to Knight of Justice in the Order of St John in 2002, and received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for public service in 1999. He received the Dr. Hugh Lefave Award (2003) and the Courage to Come Back Award (2004) for his efforts to reduce the stigma of mental illness. In 2004 he also received the Phi Delta Kappa Educator of the Year Award and the DAREarts Cultural Award in recognition of the Lieutenant Governor’s Book Program and was named a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International District 7090. Mr. Bartleman serves as Visitor to the University of Western Ontario and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Western Ontario, York University, Laurentian University, Queen’s University, the University of Windsor, Ryerson University, McGill University, Nipissing University and Sir Wilfrid Laurier University. He is Honorary Patron of about 80 organizations.

Mr. Bartleman has published four books. His first book, Out of Muskoka (2002), a memoir of his early life, won the Ontario Historical Society’s Joseph Brant Award in 2003, presented for the best book on multicultural history published in the last three years. Mr Bartleman has donated all royalties to the scholarship fund of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. Proceeds from his second book, On Six Continents (2004), support the Shared Citizenship Public Lecture Series at the University of Toronto. He has also published Rollercoaster: My Hectic Years as Jean Chrétien’s Diplomatic Advisor, 1994-1998 (2005). His most recent book is entitled Raisin Wine: A Boyhood in a Different Muskoka and was published by McClelland & Stewart in March 2007.

Mr. Bartleman had a distinguished career of more than 35 years in the Canadian Foreign Service. He was Canada’s Ambassador to the European Union from 2000 to 2002. He served as High Commissioner to Australia in 1999-2000 and to South Africa in 1998-1999. From 1994 to1998, Mr. Bartleman was Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister and Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign and Defence Policy, Privy Council Office. He was Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council of NATO from 1990 to 1994, Ambassador to Israel and High Commissioner to Cyprus from 1986 to 1990, and was Ambassador to Cuba from 1981 to 1983. Mr. Bartleman opened Canada’s first diplomatic mission in the newly independent People’s Republic of Bangladesh in 1972 and served in senior positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade from 1967.

Born on 24 December 1939 in Orillia, Ontario, James Bartleman grew up in the Muskoka town of Port Carling, and is a member of the Mnjikaning First Nation. Mr Bartleman earned a B.A. (Hons.) in History from University of Western Ontario in 1963. On a posting to Brussels, he met Marie-Jeanne Rosillon. Together, they have three children.

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