Economist, professor, community activist.
Born at Sheffield, England on 12 November 1942, he completed a doctoral degree in Economics at Leeds University in 1966. He then held a lectureship at Makerere University in Uganda and served s an economic adviser to the governments of Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique, including a term as Chief Economist at the National Bank of Commerce and Director of the Institute of Finance Management. He also advised the first government of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
In 1975, he moved to Winnipeg to head the Resource and Economic Development Secretariat for the Province of Manitoba. He began teaching Economics at the University of Manitoba in 1977 and served as Department Head of Economics (1984-1997). He pioneered the alternative budget concept, launching it with the Cho!ces coalition in Winnipeg, and subsequently at the provincial level. He was associated with the Manitoba office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where he was named the Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues in 2019. He coordinated the Premier's Advisory Council for Education, Poverty and Citizenship.
His scholarly research, for which he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2005), championed the interests of people marginalized by the economic system. Locally, he was an advisor to Manitoba Credit Union Central for 19 years, and sat on boards of Manitoba Hydro and the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities. He was Board Chair for the Pollock's Hardware Co-op for 10 years and was engaged by several Indigenous organizations around Winnipeg. He was a co-winner of the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics (2008) and received a Joe Zuken Citizen Activist Award from the Joseph Zuken Memorial Association.
He died at Winnipeg on 28 July 2020.
Obituary [John Loxley], Winnipeg Free Press, 19 August 2020.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 25 September 2026
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