Gordon Anton grew up in Fox Valley, Saskatchewan — a farming village of 450 people in the province’s southwest corner, right in the heart of Canada’s grain belt, and home to a tight-knit community of Germans from Russia who’d settled there in the early 1900s. It was the kind of childhood that barely exists anymore: the 1950s and ’60s, no digital technology of any kind, just fields, weather, and whatever competition you could organize with the other kids in town. Sports filled that vacuum, and filled it fiercely — a competitive streak took root early and never really let go.
At 18 he left Fox Valley for the University of Calgary, earning both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Public Administration and Political Science. The 1970s pulled him in two directions at once: teaching Political Science at Mount Royal University in Alberta by day, while running the Alberta wing of the Liberal Party of Canada as Executive Director — a front-row seat to federal politics through the Pierre Trudeau years.
In 1988 he became CEO of E3 Community Services, a public health and developmental services organization in Collingwood, Ontario — a role he’d hold for the next 28 years. Along the way he spearheaded the creation of OASIS (Ontario Agencies Supporting Individuals with Special Needs), which grew into a provincial umbrella body for nearly 200 agencies overseeing almost $2 billion in combined public funding. For that work, he became the first-ever recipient of the Annie Oliver Award for Excellence.
These days Gordon is retired, restless in the best sense, and rarely home for long. He writes across politics, philosophy, history, and the everyday business of being alive — and this site is where all of it lives, published work and in-progress alike.
Contact: gordonanton@me.com