Ernest J. Smith

Ernest John Smith RCA was a Canadian architect.

Both he and his partner Dennis Carter, with whom he founded Smith Carter, were, according to Jeffrey Thorsteinson, among several "significant modern architects" who graduated from the University of Manitoba's architecture program prior to 1946, and who were "vital to the rise of a notable regional strain of Canadian architecture" referred to as Manitoba modernism.

Architectural historian Kelly Crossman remarks that in the 1950s Manitoba architectural firms "consistently ranked among the best in the country" and that the provincial capitol Winnipeg "played a significant role as an early centre of architectural modernism in Canada", identifying Smith Carter as one of two "especially" important Winnipeg design firms. Their work included "major projects, public and private." One of the most "prolific and influential" design firms in Winnipeg, they earned a reputation in the 1950s and 1960s for "slick, understated, lucid, refined and experimental architecture keyed directly into site and landscape" which "changed the urban character" of the city.