On 14th May 20 years ago Jon Postel, operator of IANA officially delegated tbe .ca domain name to Canadian Internet pioneer and Webnames.ca founder John Demco.

John Demco managed the domain space out of his University of British Columbia office on behalf of all Canadians for 13 years, allocating and administering Domain Names with no charge to users on a voluntary basis. By 2000 an amazing 100,000 domain names were registered exceeding the capacity of a volunteer undertaking.

In 2000, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), a not-for-profit corporation took over operation and since then CIRA have accredited over 90 registrars which act as retailers of dot-ca domains to the Canadian public.There are over 835,000 dot-ca domains registered, making it the 13th most popular country code domain globally. John plays a role in managing Canada’s choice domain by serving on CIRA’s Board of Directors. "John’s efforts laid the foundation for dot-ca domain names and he has been a constant throughout its evolution, twenty years and almost 1,000,000 dot-ca domain names later, John’s contributions continue to benefit the Canadian Internet community." said Bernard Turcotte, President and CEO of CIRA,

Canadian individuals and companies currently prefer to use dot-ca extension over dot-com, demonstrating their national identity on the Internet. Sales of dot-ca also generate millions of dollars revenue for the Canadian economy and employ thousands of people which is possible due to John’s foresight, vision and commitment.

"We’re very proud that .CA has its roots at The University of British Columbia “We look forward to commemorating John’s efforts by naming a Learning Centre at the Computer Science Department in his honour later this year."said Angus Livingstone, Managing Director of the University Industry Liaison Office at UBC.