Walter Stewart Owen, (January 26, 1904 – January 13, 1981) was the 22nd

Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia The lieutenant governor of British Columbia () is the viceregal representative of the , in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The office of lieutenant governor is an office of the Crown and serves as a representative of the monarchy in ...

from 1973–1978. In his youth, Owen was the first premier of the British Columbia Older Boys' Parliament, which later became the British Columbia Youth Parliament. He became a prominent

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

in Vancouver. He was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1928 and in 1933 was named the youngest crown prosecutor in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

at that time. He later went into private practice and co-founded the Vancouver law firm Owen Bird. In 1958, he was elected as the president of the

Canadian Bar Association The Canadian Bar Association (CBA), or Association du barreau canadien (ABC) in Canadian French, French, represents over 37,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers and law students from across Canada. History The Association's first Annu ...

.Canadian Bar Association: Past CBA Presidents
/ref> In 1956, Owen and business partner

Frank Griffiths Frank A. Griffiths (December 17, 1916 – April 7, 1994) was a Canadian media executive through his company, Western International Communications Ltd. (WIC). Frank Griffiths was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. In 1956, along with ...

purchased

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capita ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

CKNW CKNW is a news/talk formatted radio station in Vancouver, British Columbia, owned by Corus Entertainment. It broadcasts on an assigned frequency of AM 980 kHz, and is unusual in that it is a 50,000-watt, Class A station broadcasting on a region ...

and co-founded Western International Communications Ltd. ("WIC"). He is the father of

Philip Owen Philip Walter Owen (March 11, 1933 – September 30, 2021) was the 36th mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia from 1993 to 2002, making him one of Vancouver's longest serving mayors. His father was Walter S. Owen, who was Lieutenant Governor o ...

, who served three terms as the mayor of the city of Vancouver. In 1978, he was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

References

External links

Biography from the website of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia
Lieutenant Governors of British Columbia Lawyers in British Columbia Canadian King's Counsel Canadian Bar Association Presidents 20th-century Canadian businesspeople Officers of the Order of Canada 1904 births 1981 deaths People from the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine {{vancouver-stub, Owen, Walter Stewart