Editing Expo 67 (section)

===Key people===
[[File:Aerial view Canada Pavilion to Quebec Pavilion Expo 67 - LAC e000990837.jpg|left|thumb|The Expo 67 site on Notre Dame Island with the Canada, [[Québec Pavilion|Quebec]] and Ontario pavilions in view]]

Expo 67 did not get off to a smooth start; in 1963, many top organizing committee officials resigned. The main reason for the resignations was Mayor Drapeau's choice of the site on new islands to be created around the existing St. Helen's Island and also that a computer program predicted that the event could not possibly be constructed in time.<ref name="Brown">{{cite web |last=Brown |first=Kingsley |date=November 5, 1963 |title=Building the World's Fair |url=http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/society/celebrations/expo-67-montreal-welcomes-the-world/building-the-worlds-fair.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110225705/https://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/society/celebrations/expo-67-montreal-welcomes-the-world/building-the-worlds-fair.html |archive-date=November 10, 2012 |access-date=April 26, 2012 |work=Did You Know |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]]}}</ref> Another more likely reason for the mass resignations was that on April 22, 1963, the federal [[Liberal Party of Canada|Liberal]] government of Prime Minister [[Lester Pearson]] took power. This meant that former Prime Minister [[John Diefenbaker]]'s [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] government appointees to the board of directors of the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition were likely forced to resign.<ref name="Berton, p. 262">Berton, p. 262</ref>

Canadian diplomat [[Pierre Dupuy (diplomat)|Pierre Dupuy]] was named Commissioner General, after Diefenbaker appointee Paul Bienvenu resigned from the post in 1963.<ref name="p.263">Berton, p. 263</ref> One of the main responsibilities of the Commissioner General was to attract other nations to build pavilions at Expo.<ref name="p.263" /> Dupuy would spend most of 1964 and 1965 soliciting 125 countries, spending more time abroad than in Canada.<ref name="p.264">Berton, p. 264</ref>  Dupuy's 'right-hand' man was [[Robert Fletcher Shaw]], the deputy commissioner general and vice-president of the corporation.<ref name="p.264" />  He also replaced a Diefenbaker appointee, C.F. Carsley, Deputy Commissioner General.<ref name="p.264" /> Shaw was a professional engineer and builder, and is widely credited for the total building of the Exhibition.<ref name="p.264" /> Dupuy hired Andrew Kniewasser as the general manager. The management group became known as ''Les Durs''—the tough guys—and they were in charge of creating, building and managing Expo.<ref name="p.264" /> ''Les Durs'' consisted of: Jean-Claude Delorme, Legal Counsel and Secretary of the Corporation; Dale Rediker, Director of Finances; Colonel Edward Churchill, Director of Installations; [[Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien]], Director of Operations, dubbed "The Mayor of Expo"; Pierre de Bellefeuille, Director of Exhibitors; and Yves Jasmin, Director of Information, Advertising and Public Relations.<ref name="guidebook" /> To this group the chief architect Édouard Fiset was added. All ten were honoured by the Canadian government as recipients of the Order of Canada, Companions for Dupuy and Shaw, Officers for the others.

Jasmin wrote a book, in French, ''La petite histoire d'Expo 67'', about his 45-month experience at Expo and created the Expo 67 Foundation (available on the web site under that name) to commemorate the event for future generations.<ref>{{cite book |title=Official Expo 1967 Guide Book |year=1967 |publisher=Maclean-Hunter Publishing Co. Ltd. |location=Toronto |pages=256–258}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Jasmin to Receive Award |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GUMjAAAAIBAJ&dq=yves%20jasmin&pg=5216%2C1173378 |access-date=April 25, 2012 |newspaper=The Montreal Gazette |date=May 5, 1967 |location=Montreal |page=15}}</ref>

As historian [[Pierre Berton]] put it, the cooperation between Canada's French- and English-speaking communities "was the secret of Expo's success—'the [[Quebec|Québécois]] flair, the English-Canadian pragmatism.'"<ref>Berton, p. 269</ref> However, Berton also points out that this is an over-simplification of national stereotypes. Arguably Expo did, for a short period anyway, bridge the "[[Two Solitudes (Canadian society)|Two Solitudes]]."<ref>Berton, pp.269–270</ref>