ROBIN THOMAS NAYLOR

July 27, 1945- February 15, 2025 Robin Thomas Naylor is now at a computer keyboard in another universe, poring over a vast array of unusual sources, generating novel economic interpretations of past and current events, skewering conventional wisdom, and delighting his readers with sardonic asides as they wade through sentences even longer than this one. He was Rob to his family and to caregivers at the end of his life, and Tom to his friends and colleagues. Tom's academic career spanned almost 50 years as a professor of economics at McGill, where he published prolifically and broke ground as a teacher. His course on black markets and the underground economy earned rave reviews from students. Later, he became an associate member of the McGill School of Environment and created a new course on ecological economics. Tom was educated at the University of Toronto (Breuls gold medal), London School of Economics (Commonwealth Scholar) and King's College, Cambridge. Though gifted quantitatively, he became disillusioned with the pseudo-science of mainstream economics and shifted to economic history and qualitative analysis. Author of ten books and countless peer-reviewed articles, Tom's two-volume History of Canadian Business (1975) was his first, but by no means last, challenge to orthodox renderings of Canada's economic development. His analyses irked some colleagues while others lionized Tom as a direct intellectual descendant of Harold Innis. Such responses neither deterred nor encouraged him. As Tom told a McGill News interviewer in 2014, "I don't think I set out to disturb things. I think things deserve to be disturbed." Tom's other publications focused on illegal finance and economic crime, sometimes targeting wide audiences. For example, his best-seller, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (1986) was translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Tom's hallmarks were brilliance, mordant wit, and intellectual fearlessness. He was at once cynical and steadfastly loyal, irascible yet warm and big-hearted, shy and a showman. He was always leaving Montreal and McGill but ultimately did so only when illness forced his hand. Tom is survived by his son, Omar, whom he adored. He will be missed always by his sister, Karen Mulhallen; brothers, Steven and David Naylor, and their spouses, Pamela Ritchie and Ilse Treurnicht; as well as his nieces and nephews, Karline, Anna, Melinda, Mia, Stefan, and Magnus. The family thanks George and Jane Archer, Philip Cercone and Colleen Gray, and Sandra Shatilla for their longstanding love and support during Tom's illness. Outstanding clinicians in Montreal and Toronto helped Tom, notably Drs. Pedro Rosa-Neto, Chris Ulic, Berton Ung, Phil Garwood, and Elizabeth Au-Yeung. Inpatient staff at Mount Sinai (9 South) and North York General (3 North) were exemplary. Last, we are especially grateful for the kindness and dedication of the amazing team at Cedarhurst Dementia Home who took such great care of Rob in the last year of his life. Celebrations of life with family and close friends will be organized in the weeks ahead.