John Meisel, who served as the Chair of the CRTC from 1979 to 1983, has passed away at the age of 101.
According to an obituary published in the Kingston Whig Standard this week, the Queen’s University Professor Emeritus died peacefully on March 30.
Born in Vienna, Austria to Jewish Czech parents, the Meisel family was sent abroad by the Bata Shoe Company where Meisel’s father worked, as the Nazi occupation loomed. Jewish employees were dispatched to other Bata facilities, taking Meisel to the Netherlands, Morocco and Haiti before arriving in Canada in 1942.
He attended Ottershaw College in the UK, Pickering College in Newmarket, ON, the University of Toronto, and eventually earned a PhD at the London School of Economics.
He went on to teach political science at Queen’s University for five decades, starting in 1949, and was a co-founder of The Canadian Journal of Political Science and The International Political Science Review.
A strong supporter of Canadian culture and the arts, Meisel was appointed Chair of the CRTC in 1979 by Joe Clark’s government, serving through Oct. of 1983.
Among the notable developments during his term was the introduction of pay-TV in Canada. The regulator also turned down a proposal from the public broadcaster to launch a “CBC-2” cable offering, and grappled with the issue of how to regulate programming content as satellite dishes beaming in foreign content became more affordable. The commission additionally licensed satellite technology to provide multi-channel television and radio service to northern and remote communities for the first time under Meisel’s tenure.
He returned to Queen’s following his term as Chair. Meisel was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and was promoted to Companion status in 1999. He penned his memoir, A Life of Learning and Other Pleasures, in 2012.
Also known for his philanthropy, Meisel donated the Meisel Woods Conservation Area to the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority in 2000, 130 acres of forested trails, intended as a nature sanctuary for Eastern Ontario residents.
