Cyclone Taylor - After Hockey

After Hockey

Taylor joined the Canadian Immigration Branch in October, 1907, a job that was arranged as an inducement to get Taylor to play for the Ottawa Hockey Club. When Taylor moved to Vancouver he kept his job with the branch. In 1914, Taylor was involved, as the No. 3 immigration officer in Vancouver, in the infamous Komagata Maru incident. In the incident, a steamship of 376 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh immigrants were not permitted to land and the steamship was forced to return to India. Taylor later became the Commissioner of Immigration for British Columbia and the Yukon, a position he held until his retirement in 1950. In 1949, Taylor was named as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for outstanding service to the country and community as an immigration officer in two wars.

Taylor ran unsuccessfully for election, as a member of the B.C. Progressive Conservative party, in the Vancouver Centre riding in the 1952 British Columbia general election, where he finished fourth of six candidates. He again ran in the Vancouver Centre riding in the 1953 British Columbia general election, where he had 1,007 votes for 5.27% of the ballots, and again finished fourth of six candidates. He was elected to one term as a member of the Vancouver Parks Board.

His retirement years featured some painful moments with the death of his mother in 1934, and not being able to make it to her funeral, the death of his wife — whom he had married in 1914 — from a heart seizure in 1963 and the death of his youngest child, Joan Franklin, in 1976 due to a heart weakness brought on by stringent dieting in her days as a figure skater. Taylor is also reported to have been a Freemason.

After breaking his hip in 1978, his health deteriorated and he died in his sleep in Vancouver on June 9, 1979 — two weeks short of his 95th birthday. In pre-game ceremonies prior to the first game of the 1979–80 season, he was honoured by the Canucks and the team's award for most valuable player was renamed the Cyclone Taylor Award.