Ross McLean

John Ross McLean (1905-1984), the 11th of 12 children of a Northern Manitoba minister and farmer, was born in the small prairie village of Ethelbert in 1905. He became a Canadian journalist and civil servant. In the latter role he served as the Commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in the 1940s, having previously been instrumental in the foundation of the Board the previous decade.

Early years

John Ross McLean (top right) with Georges Vanier, Vincent Massey and Lester Pearson, Canada House, London.

In the 1920s McLean studied at Brandon College, and then later at the University of Manitoba. After gaining his MA from Manitoba in 1927, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Balliol College at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. McLean had seen and admired the work of British documentary film-maker John Grierson, and suggested to Massey that he should persuade the Canadian government to allow Grierson to compile a report into its film-making activities. After arguments with the government over the content of several films, Grierson resigned his position as Government Film Commissioner in 1945. During the turbulent postwar years, McLean succeeded Grierson as Commissioner, initially on an interim basis but from January 1947 as an official appointment. McLean was faced with several problems during his time in charge, including budget cuts, a reduction in staffing and conflicts with the dominant United States film industry. In an atmosphere of heightening Cold War tensions with a government minister suggesting that certain NFB employees were engaged in Communist activities, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation was instigated into communism at the Board. Several employees were deemed "security risks", but following the findings of the investigation, McLean refused to fire any staff members.

Post-1950 In 1950, McLean moved to Paris with his wife and young son to head the film division at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a position he was to hold until 1957. He returned to Canada as a writer and broadcaster, contributing to a number of publications. Then in 1960 he assumed the post of research director at the Broadcast Board of Governors which later became the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), where he eventually took on the role of special policy advisor, a post he was to hold until he retired in 1973.

Family

Ross married Beverley Bell Cosh and they had two children, Digby and Yolande.

In an interview with the Toronto Star, Digby was reported as saying that his father was intensely nationalistic, and that he was perhaps best known for having stood up to U.S. film interests during his NFB tenure. Yolande remarked that her father loved history, read voraciously and travelled widely, sometimes forgetting to tell his family his next destination. Fluent in several languages, Mr McLean taught himself French by translating the Bible. In later life, McLean suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He died July 26, 1984, in Ottawa, several weeks after Beverley, who died on May 17 the same year.