Keith Spicer, Canada’s Offbeat Envoy of Reconciliation, Dies at 89

Keith Spicer, who as a spirited government official pushed his fellow Canadians to define their national identity and reconcile their bilingual heritage more than two centuries after the British defeated the French to capture Quebec, died on Aug. 24 in Ottawa. He was 89.

His death, in a hospital, was confirmed to The Canadian Press by Nick Spicer, one of his three children.

Raised by Protestant parents who were anti-Catholic and anti-French, Mr. Spicer began his professional career as a…