Fonds 1774 - Richard Simeon fonds

Richard Simeon (1943-2013) was a professor of political science and law at the University of Toronto and one of Canada’s preeminent political scientists. He was an internationally-recognized scholar of Canadian and comparative federalism, constitutional politics, intergovernmental relations, comparative politics and ethnic diversity.

Prof. Simeon was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Vancouver. He received his BA from UBC and his PhD from Yale. His PhD dissertation, Federal-Provincial Diplomacy (1968) became his first and most important book (Federal-Provincial Diplomacy, published in 1972).

Prof. Simeon taught in the Political Studies Department at Queen’s University from 1968-1991 and became the first Director of its Institute of Intergovernmental Relations (1976-1983). He joined the University of Toronto as a Professor of Political Science and Law in 1991. He was also the visiting William Lyon Mackenzie King Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University in 1998 and 2006-2008. He retired in 2010.

Prof. Simeon was deeply involved in Canada’s constitutional issues, especially during the country’s national unity debates in the 1970s and onwards. He served as Research Coordinator for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (Macdonald Commission), sat on the Ontario Advisory Committee on the Confederation, and served as occasional advisor on constitutional matters to Ontario premiers Bill Davis, David Peterson and Bob Rae. He was the first non-lawyer appointed to the Ontario Law Reform Commission and served as its vice-chair from 1989-1995.

Later, Prof. Simeon’s interest in constitutional politics and federalism became more international and comparative in focus, as he worked in Sudan, post-apartheid South Africa, Jordan, Ethiopia and Kenya during key moments of change for those governments.

Prof. Simeon was a prolific scholar, authoring more than 20 books and 100 articles and book chapters. He influenced a generation of young Canadian political scientists who called themselves “Simeon’s people.” He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and was awarded the Daniel J. Elazar Award by the American Political Science Association for “a lifetime of distinguished scholarship on federalism and intergovernmental relations” in 2010.

Prof. Simeon died of cancer on October 11 2013 at the age of 70.