Bryce, Robert B. (Robert Broughton), 1910-1997 : Robert Broughton Bryce was born at Cobalt, Toronto, Ontario on February 27, 1910. He was the son of Robert Alexander a mining engineer and Edna Gertrude Baxter. He was educated at the Queen Victoria School, Toronto (1916-1918); at the Fern Avenue School (1918-1922); at the University of Toronto Schools (1922-1928) in Sciences and Mathematics; at the University of Toronto (1928-1932) in engineering (B.A.Sc.Eng); at the University of Cambridge in England (1932-1935) in economics under J.M. Keynes (M.A. Econ.), and, at Harvard University (1935-1937) in economics as a Commonwealth Dominion Fellow awarded Commonwealth Fellowship England to United States (Post-Grad. Economics). He won a number of scholarships and prizes at Cambridge, England, but especially won the Wrainbury Award in 1934, which is the most coveted English scholarship in economics. His special study at Harvard was United States economics in general and especially the effect of their monetary policy on capital creation and its effect on unemployment. From June 1st to September 15, 1936, he toured the United States 20,000 miles, visiting textile, iron, steel, chemical and oil plants, cotton and wheat growing areas. Mr. Bryce was one of the most dedicated disciples of Lord John Maynard Keynes when his famous general theory on the use of interest and money was published in 1936.
After his studies, Robert Broughton Bryce worked as an economist in the Investment Department for Sun Life Insurance Co. in Montreal from 1937 to 1938. In 1938, he joined the federal Department of Finance as economist until 1945. In 1946, he was the first Canadian appointed Executive Director of the World Bank for reconstruction and development in Washington. He returned to Canada in 1947, where he became Secretary of the Treasury Board and Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance. In 1954, he was named Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. During that period, he served under three Prime Ministers and contributed to the orderly transfer of responsibilities with the changes of government in 1957 and 1963. He also attended several National and International conferences such as Commonwealth Prime Ministers (1955-1961), NATO meetings (1957-1961), Dominion-provincial Conferences (1945-1961) and, USA-Canada joint Ministerial Committee (1956-1961). In 1963, he was appointed again Deputy Minister of Finance and he retired from that department in 1970. After his retirement, he took several positions, one as Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister on the Constitution, one as Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund in Washington representing Canada, Ireland and Jamaica from 1971 to 1974 and as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Concentration of Corporate Power in Canada for a short period of time from 1975 to 1977.
In 1978, after recovering from an illness, Mr. Bryce undertook a number of part time assignments, including that of Distinguished Visitor at the Staff Development Centre of the Public Service Commission and part-time member of the Economic Council of Canada. His main work was research and writing on the history of the Department of Finance during 1930's and 1940's. He wrote many other books and articles during the decade of 1980 on economics, taxation and finance questions in Canadian and in American journals. He is the author of "Maturing in Hard Times: Canada's Department of Finance through the Great Depression" published in 1986 and "Canada and the Cost of World War II, the International Operations of Canada's Department of Finance, 1939-1947" originally written in 1990 and published in 2006. He received many awards during his career. In 1965, he received the Vanier Medal of the Canadian Institute of Public Administration, won the 1967 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Public Service of Canada, was named Companion of the Order of Canada in April 1969, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and received honorary degrees from the University of Manitoba, Queen's University and the University of Toronto. He died on 30 July 1997 in Ottawa.
For more information on Mr. Robert B. Bryce see the following publication: "The Ottawa Men, The Civil Service Mandarins 1935-1957" by J.L. Granatstein.
