Contact Christopher McCreery
McCreery’s non-academic interest include restoring and racing Corvairs, (he has a 1962 Monza 900 2 door coupe and a 1965 Corsa coupe) anything associated with Canadian politics and history, woodworking, playing hockey, reading and writing amongst other things. He is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, Director of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, member of The Champlain Society, The Canadian Historical Association, The Orders and Medals Research Society (UK), The Military Collectors Club of Canada, The Orders and Medals Society of America, Corvair Society of America, St. Lawrence Auto Club (CASC) and regularly contributes articles to a variety of publications.
About the Author
Christopher McCreery, MVO, PhD, was born in Kingston Ontario in 1975. He attended both public and high school in Kingston and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Politics and Canadian/British History at the University of Western Ontario’s Huron University College in 1998. Upon completion of his BA, McCreery accepted a Queen’s Fellowship and began working on his Master of Arts in Canadian history at Queen’s University. Completed in 1999, McCreery’s MA thesis, Questions of Honour; Canadian Government Policy Towards Titular Honours from Macdonald to Bennett (1867-1935), served as an important reference in Conrad Black’s lawsuit against Prime Jean Chrétien.
Immediately after finishing his MA, McCreery began his Doctorate, which he also undertook at Queen’s University, having been awarded the Colonel R.S. McLaughlin Fellowship. His thesis examined the invention of Canadian citizenship, the origins of multiculturalism and the basis of the modern Canadian honours system—defining the concept of “exemplary citizenship.” Honour, National and Citizenship in a Multicultural Policy: The Foundation of Canada’s Federal Honours System, was successfully defended in September 2003 and McCreery completed his doctoral thesis.
Concurrent with his doctoral work, McCreery wrote The Order of Canada: Its Origins, History and Development, the first full length academic work written about the history and development of not only the Order of Canada, but the entire Canadian honours system. A byproduct of this work was The Canadian Honours System, which is the first fully illustrated history of the modern Canadian honours system. He has served as an advisor to the British and various Canadian provincial governments on questions relating to honours.
The Order of Canada: Its Origins, History and Development is the first Canadian book in which Her Majesty The Queen has authored a prefatory message and one of the first in the Commonwealth.
His latest publication Commemorative Medals of The Queen’s Reign in Canada, 1952-2012, will be released by Dundurn Press in May 2012. As part of the fortieth anniversary of the Order of Military Merit the Department of National Defence commissioned McCreery to write a history of that Order and this will be launched in June 2012. Other forthcoming publications include a history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Long Service Medal, a pictorial history of the Rideau Club and a history of Government House Halifax.
Since 2009 McCreery has served as a member of the Federal Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Committee. In 2010 he was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to serve as a member of the Governor General Expert Advisory Committee. The Committee was charged with assisting in the search for a new Governor General.
Christopher McCreery was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, during the 2010 Royal Tour. He is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, The Queen’s University Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Canadian Numismatic Research Society.
In 2012 McCreery was appointed by the Governor-in-Council to the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.