Eric Kierans

Eric Kierans, a headstrong economic Canadian nationalist, left- wing capitalist and one of the most inventive political minds in the Quebec and federal Liberal governments during the 1960s and 1970s, died yesterday morning at St. Mary's Hospital after a mild stroke. He was 90.

Kierans was Quebec's minister of revenue, and later minister of health, in Jean Lesage's cabinet from 1963 to 1968. He was postmaster-general and minister of communications in Pierre Trudeau's government from 1968 to 1971.

Kierans was also president of the Montreal Stock Exchange from 1960 until he embarked on his political career three years later.

"He was an original. He was the most unusual politician capable of looking at things sideways. And he was fearless," said journalist Richard Gwyn, who served as Kierans's executive assistant in Ottawa.

"He was ahead of his time. He wasn't good at lining up support in cabinet, but time and time again he proved he was a politician ahead of his time.

"As head of the Montreal Stock Exchange, as incredible as it sounds today, he allowed Jews to be admitted for the first time and introduced French on the trading floor."

Quebec opposition leader Bernard Landry said Kierans deserved the respect of all Quebecers. "With Rene Levesque at his side, he was one of the key architects of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. He helped introduce a modern economic vision."

Eric William Kierans was born in Montreal on Feb. 2, 1914. His father, an electrician, was Irish; his mother was a German immigrant. Kierans grew up on what was then Convent St. (now du Couvent St.) in the St. Henri district and in 1927 won a scholarship to study at Loyola College, then a Jesuit institution.

The years Kierans spent at Loyola coincided with the Depression, and in his memoirs he wrote that at Loyola he learned "the importance of community, the responsibility each of us owes to society, and that when we try to shuck off that responsibility, we shuck off humanity."

In the 1935 federal election he wrote speeches for Liberal candidates. He then went to work as a travelling salesman for the Ogilvie Flour Mills Co.

After he won a pot in a poker game - which gave him enough money to get married - he wed Teresa Whelan, a sculptor, in 1938. They had two children, Thomas and Catherine Anne. His wife died last June.

Kierans studied for his doctorate in economics at McGill University. At the same time, he started buying up small, faltering companies and revitalizing them. He began his own glue company, Canadian Adhesives, and taught at McGill before accepting the position of head of the Montreal Stock Exchange in 1960.

During his years at the top of the MSE, Kierans encouraged what he called "people's capitalism," making it easier for small investors to get in on the action.

He went into politics in 1963 when Quebec's minister of revenue, Paul Earl, died. Kierans campaigned as a refreshing maverick, as "the English-speaking Rene Levesque."

He won a by-election in Notre Dame de Grace riding and entered Lesage's cabinet.

In 1968, Kierans sought the leadership of the federal Liberal party but lost to Trudeau. In the general election that followed, Kierans was elected MP for the Laval riding of Duvernay and served as postmaster and minister of communications in the Trudeau cabinet.

He resigned from the cabinet in 1971, opposed to key economic policies that included rising government expenditures.

In the late 1970s, Kierans served as a director of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, the agency that invests Quebecers' pension money.

In the 1980s, Kierans became an outspoken critic of the Mulroney government's free-trade initiative with the United States, quoting former German chancellor Otto von Bismarck: "Free trade is for the strong, not for those who want to be strong."

In 1984, Kierans wrote Globalism and the Nation State, in which he raised vital questions about Canada's economic independence.

He was a popular, if acid-tongued, contributor to CBC Radio's Morningside. "His passion was unfeigned. There was just so much honesty there," the late broadcaster Peter Gzowski said at the time.

Kierans was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 1994.

His memoirs, Remembering, were written four years ago with Walter Stewart, who is expected to deliver a eulogy at the funeral on Thursday.

The Prime Minister's Office said yesterday: "Few Canadians combined a passion for their country, public service and a commitment to social and economic justice with greater dedication than Eric. His sharp intellect made him not only a great public figure but a role model."

The funeral will take place at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Ignatius of Loyola Roman Catholic Church, 4455 West Broadway St. in N.D.G.

ahustak@thegazette.canwest.com

Obituary of Eric Kierans

The Gazette said incorrectly that Kierans was a Quebec cabinet minister between 1963 and 1968. In fact, he was a provincial cabinet minister for three years, until the Liberals were defeated in the 1966 provincial election. The Gazette regrets the error. -

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