Senator, Senate of Canada
The Honourable Colin Deacon’s entrepreneurial background brings a unique perspective to Canada’s Upper Chamber. Before his June 2018 appointment to the Senate as an Independent Senator representing Nova Scotia, Senator Deacon spent much of his career turning ideas into organizations, products and services that improve lives.
In 2009, he founded BlueLight Analytics, a company in the restorative dentistry field. The company has successfully commercialized new technologies that improve the longevity of dental fillings. Their products were sold in dozens of countries, and they worked with most dental multinationals. Until 2006, he served as CEO of SpellRead, which improved reading skills among children and adults, and was regularly cited as one of Atlantic Canada’s fastest-growing companies. Senator Deacon has also contributed to the charitable sector, where he has been an active member on the board of several organizations, including those dedicated to children’s health and well-being, mentorship, and celebrating social innovators.
His career has focused on enabling collaboration between research and business, and Senator Deacon continues to be a strong advocate for knowledge mobilization.
As part of the Senate, he has been a strong advocate for entrepreneurs, harnessing the digital economy, updating Canada’s privacy legislation, ensuring global competitiveness of Canadian firms, and promoting Canadian leadership on climate change.
Senator Deacon is staunchly independent and believes in collaborative work amongst senators of all groups, and all parliamentarians. He supports efforts that enable the Senate to become a less partisan, more independent-minded, modern and transparent institution.
When appointed to the Senate, he was tasked with one request: to hold the government to account and challenge it to be better. He intends to continue disrupting the status quo and challenging the federal government to improve for the benefit of all Canadians.
Since 2018, Senator Deacon has been an active and highly engaged member of the Standing Senate Committees on Banking, Trade and Commerce as well as Agriculture and Forestry.
