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 Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

journalist and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

. In the latter role he served as the Commissioner of the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB) in the 1940s, having previously been instrumental in the foundation of the Board the previous decade.

Early years

In the 1920s McLean studied at

Brandon College Brandon University is a university located in the city of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, with an enrollment of 3375 (2020) full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students. The current location was founded on July 13, 1899, as Brandon C ...

, and then later at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba. After gaining his MA from Manitoba in 1927, he won a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. After completing his academic career in 1931, he moved to work in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, for the Unemployment Relief Commission of

Northern Illinois Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. The region is by far the most populous of Illinois with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010. Economics Northern Illinois is dominated by th ...

. In 1932 he returned to Canada, working for the Association of Canadian Clubs and also engaging in a journalistic career. He wrote for '' Saturday Night'' and ''

Canadian Forum The ''Canadian Forum'' was a literary, cultural and political publication and Canada's longest running continually published political magazine (1920–2000). History and profile ''Canadian Forum'' was founded on 14 May 1920 at the University of T ...

'' magazines, and in 1935 became the

National Liberal Federation The National Liberal Federation (1877–1936) was the union of all English and Welsh (but not Scottish) Liberal Associations. It held an annual conference which was regarded as being representative of the opinion of the party's rank and file and ...

's editor of publications.

National Film Board

In 1936 he was appointed the personal secretary to the Canadian High Commissioner the United Kingdom,

Vincent Massey Charles Vincent Massey (February 20, 1887December 30, 1967) was a Canadian lawyer and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 18th since Confederation. Massey was the first governor general of Canada who was born in Canada after ...

. In 1938 Massey and McLean discussed how unimpressed they were by the standard of films produced by the

Canadian Government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-C ...

Motion Picture Bureau. McLean had seen and admired the work of British

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

-maker

John Grierson John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Fla ...

, and suggested to Massey that he should persuade the Canadian government to allow Grierson to compile a report into its film-making activities. This report led, in 1939, to the formation of the new National Film Board, with Grierson in charge. In the same year that the NFB was established, Grierson hired McLean to serve under him as the Assistant Film Commissioner. 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. McLean's greatest problem, however, came from the government's fear of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

within the NFB. 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 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

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. He believed that the political beliefs of his staff were irrelevant as long as it did not interfere with their work. In December 1949, McLean was informed that his contract would not be renewed when it expired in January. Ralph Foster, then assistant commissioner, resigned in protest. Several other members of McLean's staff threatened to resign as well, but he dissuaded them from doing so as he did not want the NFB to be harmed. McLean's nephew, Grant McLean, had begun working as a

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

at the NFB during his uncle's time there. Grant, whose own NFB career spanned nearly three decades, described his uncle as a very philosophic person who believed very much in the concept of film and public information. He went on to serve as interim Commissioner himself during the 1960s.

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 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

(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 The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

(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 Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. He died July 26, 1984, in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, several weeks after Beverley, who died on May 17 the same year.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McLean, Ross Government Film Commissioners and Chairpersons of the National Film Board of Canada Brandon University alumni University of Manitoba alumni Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford 1905 births 1984 deaths Canadian cinema pioneers People with Alzheimer's disease Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission UNESCO officials Canadian officials of the United Nations