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David MacKenzie, the President of the Society in the USA appointed Alan as Commissioner for Canada. Alan advertised for volunteers in the newspapers and as a result Margaret McKenzie Masters volunteered to become the first Secretary of the new Society and Bob MacKenzie, a retired piper joined the first committee.

This new Society was a part of the Clan Mackenzie Society in the USA and the full title was, Clan MacKenzie Society in the Americas. In addition there were two or three other Canadians who were already members of the Clan MacKenzie Society in the Americas.

From these small beginnings the Society grew through recruitment of members at various Highland Games in Ontario. Then Roddy Mackenzie, from Vancouver got in contact and he was duly appointed Commissioner for Western Canada. Roddy wrote to 4000 MacKenzies from Alberta to British Columbia and the membership became established in both the far western portion of Canada as well as Ontario in the east.

A year or two after the formation of a Canadian membership, which was then officially renamed, Clan MacKenzie Society in the Americas – Canadian Chapter, we welcomed Norman MacKenzie as a member. Norman was well known and respected in North America and beyond as one of the finest drum majors in the world. He had received the Queen Mother’s Silver Dish from Queen Elizabeth the late Queen Mother for his services to the Toronto Scottish Regiment, brought his skills to the clan as an effective commissioner. Norman helped design the first colour clan brochure, the first society web site, he acquired an impressive tent with fine displays, as well as a clan van with tartan and clan logo proudly displayed. Norman would go on to serve both as commissioner, and President of the Society.

The clan grew a great deal in the early years and it soon became necessary to establish the Society in Canada separate from the United States Chapter. The Canadian section was thus duly formed as a separate Canadian charity and was renamed Clan MacKenzie Society of Canada.

Around this time the present Earl of Cromartie was seeking funds to complete renovations of Castle Leod, the last Mackenzie castle still in Mackenzie hands to preserve it for future generations. Canada became the biggest subscriber to the Clan MacKenzie Charitable Trust as it is called and the Canadian Society and the members have contributed over £70,000.

When Norman MacKenzie resigned from the Clan Society, Alan McKenzie temporarily took over from him, pending the decision to locate the presidency in other parts of the country, as the leadership of the clan had always been in Ontario. As a consequence, Sharie Argue, from Regina, Saskatchewan, the Vice-President, was elected President of the Society. She brought to the Society a considerable family tree exceeding 71,000 names. This most important file has been a great help to those who were starting out their genealogy or who had registered with the MacKenzie DNA Project through Family Tree DNA.com which Alan had begun. Joining DNA records with family tree records has been a successful development for members. Under her leadership the CMSC now has active Commissioners in almost all provinces who are outfitted with new tents and kits of books and information about the Clan and Scottish history to assist guests to our displays at events.The membership is once again growing as we become more visible to our membership and the public, both online and when Commissioners across the country attend events.

Over the next few years, from 2013-2018, Sharie Argue, as President, along with her husband Earle, visited most provinces to assist at their events and hold AGM’s in various provinces, in hopes that the membership would feel more connected across our vast country.

An important addition was made of a Commissioner specifically required to look after all things related to the Society’s web site and other aspects of the rapidly developing digital world in which we live. Scott McKenzie was in charge of all things digital including the new web-site, Facebook page and Twitter. His expertise has been greatly responsible for our new digital presence. Now we are contacting each other and members via emails as opposed to the more expensive letters and stamps. Another aspect of digitization includes the ability to pay membership dues and donations, and to order and pay for items of Clan MacKenzie inventory from the website.

More recently we have had changes to the Editorship of the magazine when Robert MacKenzie took on that task and also a new Treasurer Dan McKenzie, for the CMSC as the late Alan McKenzie had decided it was time to ‘stand down’ from his many positions with the Society.

In late 2018, Gary MacKenzie, a Commissioner from Ontario, took over the duties of President until August 2020 when he resigned for personal reasons. So, VP Lynn MacKenzie of Port Coquitlam, B.C. enthusiastically shouldered those duties during all of the new changes worldwide for everyone.

Now, partially due to the 2020 worldwide Covid-19 pandemic which has affected the manner in which life carries on, and also because of the sheer distances across our country, the Executive Committee meetings of CMSC, Commissioner meetings and the Annual General Meeting are all being conducted online through Zoom and will likely continue that way for sheer convenience….eliminating travel time for everyone and the ability to include membership from across the country, making our CMSC more inclusive.