The planner
Ernest Côté was a WWII veteran who helped plan the invasion of Normandy.
A Franco-Albertan born and raised in Edmonton, Ernest Côté (’38 LLB) arrived at the University of Alberta just as the winds of war began sweeping across Europe. The son of Senator Jean Léon Côté and his wife Cécile Gagnon, Côté was sure that world war would come sooner rather than later. Called to the Alberta Bar in October of 1939, weeks after the German invansion of Poland, Côté was off to England and enlisted in officer training by December.
Côté was a lieutenant in the Royal 22e Régiment, colloquially known as “The Van Doos.” He rose in the ranks, eventually ending up in charge of logistics for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division as they prepared for the invasion of Normandy. Côté was one of six Canadians who were aware in advance of the D-Day assault; he himself went ashore at 11 a.m. on June 6, 1944, four hours after the initial attack.
Following the Second World War, Côté had a prolific career in public service. He participated in the first meetings of the United Nation’s General Assembly, and helped draft the charter of the World Health Organization. He was legal counsel to the Canadian High Commission in London, and was placed in charge of the restoration of the Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton as assistant deputy minister of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources. In 1965, while serving as deputy minister of the same department, Côté was named with 11 others to the committee organizing Canada’s centennial celebrations. In 1968, as a member of the French Canadian Association of Ontario, Côté helped gain public funding for French secondary schools, a first in the province. That same year, he was named deputy solicitor-general of Canada, a role he held during the October Crisis of 1970. In 1972, Côté was appointed the Canadian ambassador to Finland, a position he held until his retirement in 1975.
Côté was made a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1942 by King George VI. In 2004, on the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Côté was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honour. He is a former governor at the University of Ottawa and a former regent at the University of Sudbury. He was a governor, secretary and vice-president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and was posthumously awarded a medal of the Order of La Pléiade for his defence of French language rights in Ontario. Côté was also a generous contributor to the U of A’s Campus Saint-Jean, creating the Jean-Léon Côté Scholarship in honour of his father. He was honoured by Campus Saint-Jean for his contributions in 2011.
Ernest Côté knew every Canadian prime minister since William Lyon Mackenzie King, and his passing in 2015 was recognized by both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the House of Commons.
For almost as long as there’s been a Canada, there’s been a University of Alberta. Over the next year, in honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary, we’re proudly celebrating the people, achievements and ideas that contributed to the making of a confederation.
