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McGill-Queen’s University Press is sad to acknowledge the passing of Leo Kolber. In addition to being named to the Senate by Pierre Trudeau and subsequently serving for twenty years, Leo Kolber was an McGill-Queen’s University Press author. In 2006, MQUP published Kolber’s memoir, Leo: A Life, written with L. Ian MacDonald. To honour his recent passing, MacDonald has penned a moving tribute for Policy magazine. We have excerpted it below.
L. Ian MacDonald
January 10, 2020
Leo Kolber was famously punctual, as he reminded me when I rang the doorbell of his house, five minutes late for a luncheon meeting about writing his memoir.
“If we are going to work together,” he said as he answered the door, “you are going to have to learn to be on time.” On leaving his full and eventful life Thursday morning, Leo was a bit early — a week before his 91st birthday.
He lived on Summit Circle, at the top of Westmount — a symbolic residential achievement for more than a few of Canada’s self-made captains of industry, entertainment and politics over the past century. How he got there as the consigliere of the Bronfman liquor and real estate empire was part of the story of the memoir we worked on together, Leo: A Life, which became a national business bestseller in 2003.
Oh, the stories he told while we worked on that book, in his own words, and his own voice: from his birth in 1929 at the dawn of the Great Depression, to his retirement in 2004 as chair of the powerful Senate Banking Committee; from his role as chief fundraiser of the federal Liberal Party to champion of Israel and an array of non-profit causes. Whether he was fundraising for McGill, the Jewish General Hospital, Combined Jewish Appeal or the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, he knew how to get to “yes”. No one said no to Leo.
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