McLeod Laments
Elaine’s Lament for her Father
Murray R. Smith. O.M.
Murray Rhodes Smith, O.M. passed away peacefully from cancer, at home, with his family present, on Sunday evening, December 15th, 2002. Predeceased by his parents, C. Rhodes Smith QC, (’93) and Luella G. Smith (’63), and by his brother Clifford Rhodes Smith.(‘98). Murray leaves behind his dearly loved wife of over 50 years, Muriel, daughters and sons-in-law Marta Smith, Elaine and Norman McLeod, Carolyn Smith and partner Harold Harrison, Cathy Smith and Hernan Fernandez, eight grandchildren who were the light of his life: Brietta and Kevin, Alexander, Rory, Brynne and Cameron, Daniela and Andrea, sister-in-law Elizabeth Czicery-Ronay (Budapest), cousin Marshall G. Smith, sister-in-law and brother-in-law Gwen and Paul Moulden (Winnipeg), and their family.
Murray held degrees from the Universities of Manitoba, London and Oxford where he was a Rhodes scholar. As an undergraduate he was Editor of the Manitoban and he later served on the Board of Governors of the University of Manitoba, an institution to which he remained devoted throughout his life, endowing and contributing to several scholarships. Murray’s time in Oxford, where he and Muriel were married in 1952, influenced him to fall in love with London and music, passions he returned to time and time again over the years. From 1966-1967 the family enjoyed an invaluable year in central London, spending time with Murray’s brother Cliff and his family.
Teaching was Murray’s vocation. During his career with the Winnipeg School Division he worked as a teacher of Mathematics, an Administrator, Deputy Assistant Superintendent of Schools and a Guidance Counsellor. He was a memorable teacher remembered fondly by many of his students. He believed, in the words of John Dewey, in the great and human significance of every task undertaken by students, and often quoted from and expanded on the poem “Children Learn What They Live”. In concert with this, he believed in the value of teachers as the shapers of society. He fought long and hard for better pay, pensions and working conditions for his colleagues, through the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), the Retired Teachers Association of Manitoba (RTAM) and the Canadian Association of Retired Teachers (CART), serving terms as president of each.
He brought the same commitment to his work with Seniors, as Chair of the Manitoba Council of Aging, at the Manitoba Society of Seniors (MSOS), and at Creative Retirement, as an advocate, author of many articles, and a voluntary tax advisor. He had a lifelong love of music and musicians, who express the heart of any society. He was a steadfast supporter of the New Democratic Party (NDP), and strongly believed in the role of the public sector to serve the common good through support for health care, education, social services and culture. He served for 12 years on the Board of the Health Sciences Centre, two years as part-time Chair, and consistently followed and contributed to debates on the Health Care system.
From the 70’s, he was an ardent supporter of the Woman’s movement and is warmly remembered by many Manitoba women for his genuine and unconditional support. This concern for social justice extended globally through his work as Treasurer for the Nicaraguan Children’s Fund. A devoted athlete in his later years, Murray participated in marathons and triathlons, and was a keen member of the 6:00 a.m. running group at the Reh-Fit Centre. Through all his various passions, Murray has instructed and inspired many teachers, musicians, and political and social activists, both within the family and in the community.
Family and friends meant more to Murray with each passing year. He cherished the summers at the family’s Falcon Lake cottage. These memorable times united the family and over the years expanded to include partners, spouses and all the grandchildren. He passed on to his daughters and grandchildren his interest in the arts, particularly music, his strong respect for education, and his belief in the value of political and community involvement. He supported family members in pursuing what was important for them as individuals, whatever direction that took them in. His daughters experience his values of trust, integrity, compassion and loyalty as his lasting legacy.
The family wishes to express their special thanks to the staff of Manitoba Cancer Care and Riverview Palliative Care for their attentive and compassionate care during the last year.
Flowers gratefully declined. Donations in his honour may be made to: Nicaraguan Children’s Fund, c/o 174 Oakwood Avenue. Winnipeg, R3L 1E1; Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, 101-555 Main Street, Winnipeg, R3B 1C3; or University of Manitoba Isbister Scholarship, 202 Administration Building, Fort Gary Campus, Winnipeg, R3T 2N2.
A Celebration of Murray’s Life will be held on Saturday, December 21 at 1:00 p.m. at Thomson Funeral Chapel, 669 Broadway Avenue.
Heather’s Lament for her First Baby:
Heather’s and Ella Rose’s story broadcast on CBC “Outfront” April 19/07 (MP3)
(Ella Rose McLeod, born and died June 3, 2005)
Alex (Jr)’s Lament for his First Fiancée
Kristen was the most wonderful surprise. I never expected to be loved like that. I had always hoped for it, but assumed that that sort of love only happened in stories and that real life was more complicated, but it was all so easy. She gave me so much. So much strength and so much faith, and hope and trust. And she made me feel like everything was okay, even when it most seemed like it wasn’t. She gave me a sense of peace that I had always looked for and I still feel that.
She loved you all so much. I’ve been so glad that everyone seems to have known that. She would just rhapsodize about people for hours, and she helped me to feel connected to so many people and to love so many people so simply, the way she did.
We were always looking forward. To the next time we could talk on the phone; to the next time we would be together; to me moving home from Germany and us getting married, and having children; to growing old together. We were going to have a boat. One good thing about my being away all the time was that we really treasured every second we had. It’s impossible to try and imagine what our relationship would have been like if I had stayed here, but it couldn’t have been better or more wonderful. It was a wonderful gift.
We talked a few times about death. I have always been terrified about it and found it very difficult to think about, but she was absolutely fearless. Even though she had so much to look forward to and she was so focused on the future, I think she was ready for death. I have felt her with me since then, helping me, giving me strength, and smiling down on all of us, and I know that she is happy, but I miss her.
(Kristen Robinson died in a collision on her way to university January 23, 2007. She was 21.)
Lament for A. N. McLeod
ALEX McLEOD, ECONOMIST: 1911-2007
RON CSILLAG
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 21, 2007
TORONTO -- Like a bespectacled, banker-suited Indiana Jones, Alex (he pronounced the "x" as "c" in true Scotch style) McLeod dashed from one exotic country to another in pursuit of what he called his quest. Haunted by the trauma of the Great Depression and determined to find its causes so it could never happen again, he looked to the same Holy Grail all liberal economists ache to hold in their hands: humane economic policies that allow for full employment and social justice.
Dr. McLeod had a less dramatic name for the quest: Economic sanity. The truly needy are not sacrificed on the altar of debt reduction. Industrialized countries help, not hurt, developing ones. And people, not corporate entities, call the shots. In keeping with the family motto of "Hold Fast," it was a position he never abandoned, although he despaired in its abandonment by others.
Forget the image of a bone-dry economist; Dr. McLeod's career could be called adventurous, even romantic. He had a hand in the formulation of monetary policies throughout Central America and parts of the Arab world, was governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, was the first chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank and served as professor of economics at York University before retirement rendered him, as he put it, "a professional gadfly."
His aptly-titled memoirs, Hunting a Paradigm, self-published when he was 86, offer a glimpse into his quixotic quest. A robust Keynesian, Dr. McLeod took pleasure in how demand management, which he championed, played out after the Second World War.
To avoid recession, postwar governments used tools such as interest rates, taxation and public expenditures to control or manage economic demand. It was considered highly interventionist but it mostly worked, keeping inflation low and giving many countries 25 years of growth.
All that ground to a halt around 1973, when inflation and unemployment stagnated at high levels. Baffled economists had to invent a word to describe the new phenomenon: Stagflation, and Western governments tilted toward more conservative policies.
At first, Dr. McLeod regarded the about-face as necessary but temporary. "It took me some time to realize how mistaken and naive that view was," he conceded 30 years later. "Far from being a temporary setback, [new policies] became a new orthodoxy that discarded all that had been learned since the 1930s, forced severe retrenchment on the world economy, and enshrined an extreme laisser-faire philosophy."
How seriously was he about ensuring that no one went hungry and everyone had a job? "It was a challenge to be a son to a man whose principal interest in the world was to save the world," remarked his son Ronald. "It's hard not be influenced by that. My father was a man of principle, and he lived it."
Added another son, Keith, "He will always be my image of manliness, reason, compassion and fairness to all people."
Dr. McLeod's own father, Norman Roderick McLeod, was a school principal in the town of Arcola, Sask., from 1905 to 1913 before he moved to Regina Collegiate and later became the first principal of Scott Collegiate. About 1929, as a teenager, young Alex was laid off from two jobs, an experience that would forever shape his mission.
"I wanted to find out what had hit me," he recalled in the late 1960s. "This has been my interest in economics -- to avoid this kind of thing in the future. Everything I have done since has been in that context."
In 1930, he and his identical twin brother, Gordon, left Regina to attend Queen's University in Kingston, where Dr. MacLeod earned a BA in mathematics and tried to support himself as a door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman. In 1933, he found work in Ottawa as a clerk in the auditor-general's office for $1,380 a year, and wrote home proclaiming: "The Depression is over!"
Maybe, but the civil service was still cutting back. Dr. McLeod would recount the story of the mentally challenged messenger in his department who, upon hearing that he was out of a job, slit his throat ear to ear with a razor.
Stories like that, coupled with the fallout from the 1935 Regina Riot, in which a policeman was killed in a protest by hundreds of jobless men, drove Dr. McLeod back to Queen's to ponder the mysteries of economics. He graduated in the subject with another BA in 1940.
During the Second World War, he joined the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa's Second Battalion -- a kind of reserve. He took another civil-service job, this one in the federal Finance Department, where he forecast government spending. Deciding that the position offered poor prospects for furthering his quest, and armed with a prestigious Littauer Fellowship, he headed to Harvard, where he earned a master's degree in public administration and a doctorate in economics.
Dr. McLeod seriously considered a career in astronomy but instead joined the International Monetary Fund as a kind of global financial fireman. For the next seven years, he served on several missions on money and banking problems. There was Haiti, then Honduras, where he helped establish a central bank; Costa Rica; a United Nations secondment to Libya, where he rode camels and helped unify three competing currencies that were the legacy of the war; Guatemala; and Nicaragua, where he explained that he had "no qualms" advising the brutal Somoza dictatorship because the work would benefit the entire population.
From 1952 to 1954, the family lived in Saudi Arabia. As deputy governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Dr. McLeod encountered a chaotic situation: a currency consisting solely of silver coins whose value fluctuated wildly, especially during the annual hajj of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca. His solution was to introduce paper "pilgrims' receipts" redeemable at a fixed rate. (The country didn't introduce paper currency until 1961.)
While on home leave in Ottawa in 1955, he took a position as the first chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the fourth-largest of the 10 chartered banks then operating in Canada. He accepted in part because "it was in keeping with my quest." From that perch, he warned that industrialized countries should not be surprised if developing countries reject free-market economics if they only help the rich get richer.
One paper he wrote in 1960 was said to have played a big part in Ottawa's establishment of a fixed exchange rate for the Canadian dollar. He chaired the economists' committee of the influential Canadian Bankers Association, whose brief to the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance (also known as the Porter Commission) led to progressive changes incorporated into the 1967 Bank Act.
Meantime, another sunny clime beckoned.
In 1966, Dr. McLeod was named governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. The islands were in financial turmoil due to a series of crises involving the British pound, which was still used in the country. In 1967, sterling was devalued and Dr. MacLeod guided a smooth transition to the "TT dollar." The posting was to last five years; the work was wrapped up in three.
In 1973, four years after he accepted a professorship at York University, the school granted him leave to advise the government of Botswana on monetary matters, which led to its first central bank.
The teaching stint ended in 1977, and Dr. McLeod continued his love of sailing and racing sloops. And he wrote, pounding out books, letters and articles for his website until he was 94.
A lifelong teetotaller, he was a serious man but not without an impish sense of humour. He and his twin brother swapped places several times in their lives, to mixed success.
Meanwhile, the supply-side, debt-reducing, belt-tightening economies that became the norm in the 1980s and beyond caused him pain. He completely altered the focus of his quest, to slamming "the strategy of retrenchment" that had replaced his vision of full employment and compassionate economics.
These harsh new policies, he rued, resulted in "a new depression" of "unemployment, poverty, crime, family violence, drug abuse, alienation, other social ills and escalating government debts."
He was blunt: The public and most governments have been brainwashed into believing that liberal policies no longer work, he believed -- the real villain was the mostly unsuccessful strategy of combatting global inflation and debt.
Who was to blame? Partly the news media, whose support for cutbacks to social programs toed the line set by their corporate ownership. A grassroots revolution was needed -- "not a violent and bloody revolution, let's hope, but an intellectual revolution carried out by democratic means."
He saw himself as an optimist, but, as he wrote a decade ago with just a hint of despair, "a very discouraged optimist."
Alexander Norman McLeod was born in Arcola, Sask., on May 6, 1911. He died in Toronto on Feb. 25, 2007, of Parkinson's disease. He was 95. He leaves his wife of 65 years, Rosalind (Biggerstaff), sons Norman, Bruce, Keith and Ronald, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
