[2][3] In March, 1841, Governor General Sydenham named him to the Executive Council of the Province of Canada, and in December 1841, he was appointed chairman of the provincial Board of Works.
[9] As Commissioner of Public Works, Killaly was heavily involved in the construction of the canal systems along the St. Lawrence, financed in part by the British government to contribute to the defence of the province.
Speaking of the government audit procedures, designed to keep control over the spending of public funds, Killaly commented: “What earthly use there is in this Roundabout I never could see.”[1] Some concerns had been voiced regarding decisions made by the Board of Works and, in 1846, it was replaced by the Department of Public Works headed by William Benjamin Robinson, to assert clearer government control.
He was named assistant commissioner of public works in 1851, essentially the non-political head of the operations of the Department, and served until 1859,[4] when this position was abolished and he became inspector of railways.
"[11] William Agar Adamson, chaplain to Governor General Sydenham, described Killaly as "the most expensively and ill-dressed man on the wide continent of North America".