We regret to advise of the death of Colonel André D. Gauthier, CD (Ret'd) of Ottawa on Thursday, 26 October 2017 at the age of 82. Colonel Gauthier served a 37-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces before becoming a fulltime sculptor. André sculpted many statues and monuments that recognize the many branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Military Engineers are fortunate that he featured our Sappers in four of these statues.
André was born in Ottawa, ON and was educated in Montreal and the University of Ottawa. While attending university on the Regular Officer Training Plan he volunteered to serve as a troop commander with the Regiment de Hull – a Reserve armoured regiment. He was commissioned in the Canadian Provost Corps in May 1958. His early assignments included a year (1958-59) as an Infantry platoon commander in the First Battalion, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada followed by a year as Second in Command (2/IC) of No 1 Provost Platoon in Calgary, AB. In 1960 he was posted as 2IC of the Kingston Provost Detachment and Lt Gauthier became the Camp Provost Marshal at Base Valcartier, QC in 1961. The following year he was promoted Captain and posted to Germany where he first served in a Military Police staff appointment before assuming command of No 4 Provost Platoon.
On his return to Canada in the summer of 1965 André was posted as an instructor at the Canadian Forces School of Intelligence and Security and served a year training foreign national officer cadets. He was then selected to attend the Canadian Army Staff College in Kingston, ON (1966 - 67) and was promoted to Major on completion of that course. His next assignment was as Staff Officer Personnel Plans at Mobile Command Headquarters in St. Hubert, QC. Next, he became Executive Assistant to the Deputy Commander of that Command and was briefly double-hatted as the Command Secretary. In 1969 he became the Senior Staff Officer Security.
André was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1970 and appointed to head the Regional Civil Emergency Operations Section of Mobile Command covering the Province of Quebec. In 1973 he was posted to Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean as Vice-Commandant and Director of Cadets. Concurrent to that CMR appointment he participated as a Commissioner of Enquiry on the Ducros Commission. In 1975 he undertook language training to learn Serbo-Croate. This course was followed by his promotion to Colonel and his assignment as the Canadian Forces Attaché to Yugoslavia and Greece (1976-78). Upon his return to Canada he became the Director of Security at National Defence Headquarters. In 1980/81, André attended the National Defence College in Kingston and was subsequently posted to Winnipeg, MB as the Chief of Staff for Headquarters Prairie Militia Area.
Over the period 1983-86, André served as the Military Advisor to the Canadian Delegation to the conventional arms control negotiations (Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions Talks) between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Vienna, Austria and, in his last three years of his military career he was the Commandant of the unit administering Canada’s National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. In November 1989, Colonel Gauthier was awarded the Order of Military Merit and retired that year.
Family and friends may pay respect at the Kelly Funeral Home-Orleans, 23710 St. Joseph Blvd. Orleans, ON on Thursday 2 November 2017 after 9 am followed by a Funeral Mass at Paroisse St-Joseph, 2757 Boul. St. Joseph at 11 am. In-memoriam donations to the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation would be appreciated. Online Condolences can be sent to the Funeral Home. {khOct2017}
