Sylvia Ostry

{{Infobox officeholder

|name = Sylvia Ostry

|honorific_suffix= {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|CC|OM|FRSC}}

|image =

|alt =

|caption =

| office = 6th Chancellor of the University of Waterloo

| predecessor = J. Page Wadsworth

| successor = Val O'Donovan

| termstart = 1991

| termend = 1997

| 1blankname1 = President/Vice Chancellor

| 1namedata1 = Douglas T. Wright (1991-1993)
James Downey (1993-1999)

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1927|6|3}}

|birth_place = Winnipeg, Manitoba

|birth_name = Sylvia Knelman

|death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|5|7|1927|6|3}}

|death_place = Toronto, Ontario

|spouse = Henry Isidore Wiseman, Bernard Ostry

|other_names =

|alma_mater = University of Cambridge, Girton College, McGill University

|occupation = Economist and Civil Servant

|nationality = Canadian

|awards = Order of Canada
Order of Manitoba

}}

Sylvia Ostry {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|CC|OM|FRSC}} ({{nee|Knelman}}; June 3, 1927 – May 7, 2020) was a Canadian economist and public servant.

Life

Born Sylvia Knelman in Winnipeg, Manitoba on June 3, 1927, she received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from McGill University in 1948, a Master of Arts from McGill in 1950, and eventually earned her PhD from Girton College, Cambridge in 1954.

File:Cambridge Girton.jpg

After studying at the University of Cambridge, she was a lecturer at McGill, becoming an assistant professor from 1952 to 1955, and becoming Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal from 1962 to 1964.

She was divorced from Henry Isidore Wiseman in 1955{{Cite web |url=http://www.mocavo.ca/Journals-of-the-House-of-Commons-of-Canada-1955-Volume-Xcix/371070/188#188 |title=Journals of the House of Commons of Canada, 1955, Volume XCIX, Page 188 | Document Viewer |access-date=2015-11-15 |archive-date=2015-11-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117022717/http://www.mocavo.ca/Journals-of-the-House-of-Commons-of-Canada-1955-Volume-Xcix/371070/188#188 |url-status=dead }}

From 1972 to 1975, Ostry was Chief Statistician of Canada at Statistics Canada.{{Cite news|url=https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lauded-economist-slams-census-decision/article1368785/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&|title=Lauded economist slams census decision|date=2010-08-07|work=The Globe and Mail|access-date=2017-11-09|language=en-GB}} From 1975 to 1978, Ostry was Deputy Minister, Consumer and Corporate Affairs. From 1978 to 1979, she was Chairman, Economic Council of Canada. From 1979 to 1983, she was Head of the Department of Economics and Statistics of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris. From 1984 to 1985 she was Deputy Minister, International Trade, and Coordinator, International Economic Relations. Later, in 1986 Ostry became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty. During the 1988 G7 Summit in Toronto, Ostry served as Canada's sherpa.{{Cite web | url=http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1988toronto/delegation.html | title=1988 Toronto Summit Delegations}}

From 1991 to 1996, she was Chancellor, University of Waterloo. In 1997 she was appointed Chancellor Emerita, University of Waterloo.

From 1990 to 1997, she was Chair of the University of Toronto's Centre for International Studies. Since then she has been a Distinguished Research Fellow there.{{Cite web | url=http://www.international.gc.ca/odskelton/ostry_bio.aspx | title=Sylvia Ostry| date=2008-07-07}}

She was married to the late Bernard Ostry, with whom she had two children, Adam Ostry (a senior federal civil servant himself) and Jonathan D. Ostry (Deputy Director, Research Department, International Monetary Fund). She died in Toronto on Thursday May 7, 2020.{{Cite news | url=https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/05/07/former-public-servant-and-economist-sylvia-ostry-dies-at-92.html| title=Former public servant and economist Sylvia Ostry dies at 92| newspaper=The Toronto Star| date=2020-05-08| last1=Lafontaine| first1=Miriam}}

Awards

In 1972 she was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association[http://www.amstat.org/awards/fellowslist.cfm View/Search Fellows of the ASA] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616161612/http://www.amstat.org/awards/fellowslist.cfm |date=2016-06-16 }}, accessed 2016-08-20.
In 1978 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada
In 1987 she received the Government of Canada Outstanding Achievement Award
In 1990 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.{{cite web |last1=Brown |first1=Michael |title=Sylvia Ostry, b. 1927 |url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Ostry-Sylvia |website=Jewish Women's Archive |accessdate=2018-10-31}}
In 1991 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
In 2009 she was made a Member of the Order of Manitoba.{{Cite news|url=https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/sylvias-up-for-order-of-manitoba-44868967.html|title=Sylvias up for Order of Manitoba|last=Sanders|first=Carol|date=2009-05-13|work=Winnipeg Free Press|access-date=2017-11-09}}
In 2010 she was awarded The Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership

Honours

Ostry was awarded 18 honorary Doctorate of Laws degrees from:
University of New Brunswick in 1971
York University in 1971
McGill University in 1972
University of Western Ontario in 1973
McMaster University in 1973
University of British Columbia in 1973
Queen's University in 1975
Brock University in 1975
Mount Allison University in 1975
Acadia University in 1981
American College of Switzerland in 1983
University of Winnipeg in 1984
University of Manitoba in 1986
Concordia University (Montreal) in 1986
University of Windsor in 1987
University of Waterloo in 1997
a Doctorate of Management Sciences from University of Ottawa in 1976
a Doctorate of Letters from Laurentian University in 1977

= Sylvia Ostry Foundation =

The Sylvia Ostry Foundation was established{{rp|xi}} in April 1991, by several of Ostry's Canadian friends and admirers. The foundation had the objective of establishing an annual or biennial lecture in Canada on a subject related to the global economic and financial system. The lectureship was modelled on the Per Jacobsson lectures in Washington, which were established in 1964.

The inaugural lecture{{cite web | title=International Human Rights Conditions | website=C-SPAN.org | date=1993-05-20 | url=https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/international-human-rights-conditions/34401 | access-date=2025-04-06}} was given in Ottawa in May 1993 by Japanese diplomat Sadako Ogata; at the time Ogata was head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The first six Sylvia Ostry Foundation lectures were collected and published{{cite book |title=At the Global Crossroads: The Sylvia Ostry Foundation Lectures |date=2003 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |location=Montreal |jstor=j.ctt805fk |isbn= 9780773526372 }} in 2003. The lecturers were Sadako Ogata, Jacques Delors, Michel Camdessus, Renato Ruggiero, Enrique V. Iglesias, and Paul Volcker.

Select publications

[https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/4881Summitry: The Medium and the Message]. Bissell Paper No. 3. Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for International Studies, 1988
[https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/4807Canada, Europe and the Economic Summits]. Paper presented at the All-European Canadian Studies Conference, The Hague, October 24–27, 1990. Unpublished in print
[https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/568 Globalization and the G8: could Kananaskis set a new direction?]. O.D. Skelton Memorial Lecture, Queen's University, March 2002. Unpublished in print

References

External links

[https://discoverarchives.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/sylvia-ostry-fonds Sylvia Ostry archival papers] held at the [https://utarms.library.utoronto.ca/ University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services]
{{cite web|url=http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/cw2w3.cgi?p=osler&t=16762&d=4162|title=Canadian Who's Who 1997|accessdate=May 25, 2006 }}

{{succession box

| before=J. Page Wadsworth

| title=Chancellor of the University of Waterloo

| years=1991–1997

| after=Val O'Donovan

}}

Category:1927 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:Canadian economists

Category:Jewish Canadian social scientists

Category:Chancellors of the University of Waterloo

Category:Companions of the Order of Canada