Official Website of Author and Historian
Christopher McCreery holds a doctorate in Canadian political history from Queen’s University and is the author of nearly twenty books, including two Canadian best sellers. He has served as the Private Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia since 2009 and was responsible for setting up and organizing Government House following the restoration of the building.
One of the Commonwealth’s foremost experts on the vice-regal offices, honours, and symbols, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In 2010 he was invested as a Member of the Royal Victorian Order by The Queen at Government House.
From 2012 to 2018 he served on the Board Trustees of the Canadian Museum of History & Canadian War Museum. During that time in addition to sitting on the Executive, Governance, Finance and Development Committees, along with Professor Michael Bliss, OC, FRSC, and Richard Gywn, OC, he was a member of the Canadian History Hall Working Group, which along with Museum of History Staff, helped bring together the Canada History Hall, which was launched on Canada Day 2017.
In his professional capacity he has co-coordinated a number of Royal, State and Vice-Regal visits to Nova Scotia and regular advises on matters related to the operation of official residences and protocol. In 2010, McCreery was appointed by the prime minister to serve on the Governor General Expert Advisory Committee – a panel of six people selected to advise on the appointment of a new Governor General.
Dr. McCreery has served as the advisor to the Federal Government and a number of other governments on matters related to honours. In 2011 McCreery was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive review of the Canadian Honours System for the Privy Council Office. This resulted in the report Preserving Prestige and Enhancing the Recognition of Excellence: A Review of the Canadian Honours System. In 2015 he was subsequently commissioned by the Department of Canadian Heritage to research and write a new protocol manual entitled The Canadian State Ceremonial and Protocol Manual.
He has also regularly been consulted on the role of the Crown; reserve powers and function of Canada's constitutional monarchy. From 2005 to 2022, he served as the national historian for St. John Ambulance Canada. In 2026 he was appointed Chancellor of the Order of St. John in Canada (non-executive board chair of St. John Ambulance Canada).
In collaboration with the Royal Archives, McCreery curated and presented an exhibition of Canadian items in the Royal Collection which was opened by The Queen at Canada House in London in July 2017. The exhibition included Enduring Connections, a book McCreery was commissioned to write as The Queen's official gift to Canada on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
Prior to his appointment as Private Secretary, McCreery worked for the Privy Council Office, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Speaker of the Senate and Senator Michael Kirby. It was while working for Senator Kirby and the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs Science and Technology, that McCreery assisted in the coordination of the Committee's report on Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction, Out of the Shadows at Last. During his time working for the Speaker of the Senate he devised the concept and design for the Parliamentary emblem/badge.
McCreery is a member of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Orders and Medals Research Society, the Corvair Society of America, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, the Champlain Society, the Canadian Numismatic Research Society, and the Athenaeum Club. An active volunteer with St. John Ambulance, he served as the National Historian from 2005-2022, and as a member of the Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island Council Board of Directors from 2014-2024 (Chair, 2022-24). From 2022-25 he served as a Governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
McCreery's next book is a history of the Order of Nova Scotia, which will be released in 2027 as part of the 25th anniversary of t the appointment of the first members of the Order. He has served as Secretary of the Order of Nova Scotia since 2022, and additionally from 2022-23, he oversaw the establishment and administration of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal Program in Nova Scotia -- a program which was replicated in five other provinces in the absence of a Federal Platinum Jubilee Medal Program.
His current academic focus is a biography of the long serving Secretary to the Governor General, Esmond Butler, CVO, OC, who served at Rideau Hall from 1955-85, notably as Secretary from 1959-1985. A forthcoming piece for the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society "Innovating an Essential Constitutional Role: Nova Scotia and the evolution of the role of the Administrator in the Provinces," traces the origins and development of the role of the Administrator -- the ersatz Lieutenant Governor.
His hobbies include writing, canoeing, restoring vintage cars, Canadian art, anything related to Canadian history, skating -- a very rusty goalie , he is slowly working to get square and back into the crease. McCreery lives in Halifax with his partner Matt Malone. Despite the formality of his job, and owning far too many books, he doesn't take himself too seriously.
