We regret to advise of the death of Colonel William Earl “Bill” Morton, OMM, CD (Ret’d), peacefully at the Ottawa Hospital on 13 Sep 2025 at the age of 77.
Bill was born in Winnipeg MB, and spent most of his early life in Northern Ontario. He received his university education at the Royal Roads Military College in Victoria and the Royal Military College in Kingston, graduating with a civil engineering degree in 1970.
Bill’s early military career was split between Combat Engineering that was mostly in Germany, and Construction Engineering at bases in Canada. He was the Base Construction Engineering Officer in Petawawa from 1976 to 1978, and the Commanding Officer of 4 Combat Engineer Regiment in Germany, from 1980 to 1982.
Bill filled a variety of staff posts after his command position in 4 CER. He was G4 with 1 Canadian Brigade Group in Calgary, before moving to Land Forces Headquarters in Montreal, where he became the Senior Staff Officer Combat Development, and later, the Commander Divisional Engineers. He was then posted to National Defence Headquarters, where he was the senior project manager for major construction projects in the Canadian Forces.
Promoted to Colonel in 1989, Bill then held appointments as Chief of Staff in the Canadian Forces Training System and as Director General Force Development, where he supervised the strategic planning that included the large number of base closures after the 1994 Federal Budget. Before he was appointed Director General Infrastructure, Bill did a one-year United Nations tour in the former Yugoslavia as Deputy Sector Commander, Sector South in Knin.
Bill's military education included programmes at the Staff College in Camberley, United Kingdom, the NATO Defense College in Rome, and the National Defence College in Kingston.
Bill retired from the Canadian Forces in 2003 and then had a 20-year career as a civil engineering consultant with both US and Canadian engineering companies, as well as with the Canadian Government and NATO/NAMSA in Luxembourg. Among his projects, he found solutions to a wide variety of issues: acquiring and building a portable camp in Afghanistan, and then dismantling it; modernizing an 18th century French-built prison in Haiti; upgrading the Liberian Army facilities in Monrovia that were at least 75 years old and had been used as an illegal refugee camp for people with AIDS; gathering basic data in el Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan, as the camel-mounted Janjaweed slipped by silently in the dark; as well as more mundane tasks like installing security equipment in the Ambassador's residence in Kabul.
Bill will be interred at the National Military Cemetery at Beechwood in Ottawa on 14 October 2025, 3:00 - 3:30 pm. This will be preceded by a Reception 1:00 - 3:00 pm in the Reception Suites. Condolences can be sent to Beechwood.