[1] A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Blais is the grandson of John Peter Macmillan, a civil engineer who played a key role in establishing Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
[2] He attended Carleton University and joined the campus drama society, where he met Dan Aykroyd.
[3] Through the early 1970s he continued to have stage acting roles,[4] while also working as a textile artist and theatrical costume and set designer, most notably on a 1977 production of King Lear for Halifax's Neptune Theatre.
[6] He was additionally the designer of the original Arthur Ellis Award statuette for the Crime Writers of Canada.
[23] He won a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Performance - Male at the 1999 Yorkton Film Festival for The Wager.