John James Deutsch (1911 - March 18, 1976) was a prominent Canadian economist who served as
the first chairman of the Economic Council of Canada and as principal
(1968-74) of Queen’s University. Born in Quinton, Saskatchewan, and
educated at Queen’s, he worked in journalism and in government as well
as the university. In 1947 Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King asked
Deutsch to negotiate a trade agreement with the United States that would
have produced a sweeping liberalization of Canada-U.S. trade had it not
in the end been repudiated by King's government. He subsequently became
an economics professor at Queen’s and then the university's vice-principal
(administration) before being selected as principal.
Deutsch, who died in 1976, is remembered at Queen’s through the John
Deutsch University Centre (JDUC), the student union building, and through
the John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy in the university's
department of economics.
In 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
