Rodrigue Tremblay

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Rodrigue Tremblay (born October 13, 1939) is a Canadian-born economist, humanist and political figure. He taught economics at the Université de Montréal. He specializes in macroeconomics, international trade and finance, and public finance. He is a prolific author of books in economics and politics.

Biography

Born in Matane, Québec, Canada, he has a B.A. from the Université Laval (1961), a B.Sc. in Economics from the Université de Montréal (1963). Tremblay did his graduate work at Stanford University where he obtained a M.A. in Economics (1965) and a Ph.D. in Economics (1968).

He has been a professor of economics at the Université de Montréal since 1967. He is professor emeritus since 2002.

Tremblay was president of the Association canadienne de science économique (1974–75) and of the North American Economics and Finance Association (1986–87). He was chairman of the Department of Economics of the Université de Montréal (1973–76)), member of the Committee of Dispute Settlements of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1989–93) and vice-president of the Association internationale des économistes de langue française (AIELF), from 1999 to 2005.

He was invited scholar and economic consultant at the Bank of Canada, the Economic Council of Canada, the Quebec Commission of Inquiry on the Quebec Liquor Trade, the West African Monetary Union, the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (MacDonald Commission) and the United Nations. Tremblay presided at the foundation of the North American Review of Economics and Finance and was associate editor of the Review L'Action nationale and the financial weekly Les Affaires.

Rodrigue Tremblay was elected a member of the National Assembly of Quebec for the Montreal riding of Gouin in the 1976 Quebec election as candidate of the Parti Québécois. He served as Minister of Industry and Trade in the Government of Quebec, from 1976 to 1979. He sponsored the sale of wine in Quebec's 12,000 private grocery stores. He resigned from the Lévesque Cabinet on September 19, 1979.^[1] He resumed his academic career on April 15, 1981.

Contributions to economics

Rodrigue Tremblay has made contributions in many fields of economics and economic policy, especially in vulgarisation, international economics, international trade, and has authored several textbooks on economics and macroeconomics.

There are his contributions in the fields of international economics, economic development and economic cycles. He demonstrated the crucial role of short term capital movements in balance of payments adjustment (Canadian Journal of Economics, 1968). His work on economic cycles innovated by identifying economic and political shocks as factors of economicinstability (Review of North American Economics and Finance, 1988). Tremblay then linked trade and development through economies of scale and increasing returns in his work on "Export-Led Growth" (Review of North American Economics and Finance, 1991).

Dr. Tremblay's works in international trade and economic integration have been highly influential, especially in trade policy and monetary policy. In the early 1970s, Tremblay influenced monetary policy in Africa as an adviser to the West African Monetary Union (see his book on Africa and Monetary integration, 1970). In 1988, Tremblay presided the committee of Canadian economists that argued successfully for the establishment of a Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and later, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Contributions to politics

Rodrigue Tremblay is a public intellectual who is known for his contributions to the understanding of international, Canadian and Quebec politics. His political analyses have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, in French-language newspapers such as Le Devoir, La Presse, Le Soleil, and several other publications.

In 1970, he was among the first economists to propose a North American Common Market with his book Indépendance et marché commun Québec–États-Unis. Nineteen years later, on January 1, 1989, Canada and the United States entered into a North American Free Trade Area which was enlarged to include Mexico in 1994. On the invitation of the Canadian government, he served as an arbiter on the Committee of Dispute Settlements of NAFTA, from 1989 to 1993. Previously, he had served as Minister of Industry and Commerce in the Government of Quebec, from 1976 to 1979. Also in 1979, he published a manifest for the reform of Canadian federalism entitled La 3e option (The 3rd Option) which envisaged a greater degree of political autonomy for the French-speaking province of Quebec. In 1987, when the federal government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney introduced the Meech Lake Accord, it included some of Tremblay's ideas about political decentralization.

From 1999 to 2004, Rodrigue Tremblay published four books about politics and geopolitics. The first, in 1999, (Les grands enjeux politiques et économiques du Québec) reproduced a series of articles published in the financial weekly Les Affaires. In 2002, Rodrigue Tremblay published a book of political philosophy entitled L’Heure Juste (The Way It Is). In 2003, his book entitled Pourquoi Bush veut la guerre, Religion, politique et pétrole dans les conflits internationaux, published more than one month before the event, dealt with the March 20, 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq.

Contributions to ethics

In 2009 (in French) and in 2009 and in 2010 (in English), Dr. Tremblay published The Code for Global Ethics, with a preface by Dr. Paul Kurtz.

The book codifies in a pedagogical way the most fundamental humanist principles of human behavior. The Code for Global Ethics, proposes a progressive and modern code of global ethics that is summarized under 10 general humanist rules or principles. The themes range from human dignity, human life, tolerance, the need to share, and the requirement to avoid domination and superstition, to the preservation of the Earth's natural environment, the issue of violence and wars, the question of political and economic democracy, the separation of Church and State, and the central role of education and knowledge as gateways to personal happiness, independence, and individual freedom. The book is also a critique of many religion-based ethical rules and raises the issue of moral dilemmas.

Honours

• Fellow, Université de Montréal, 1961
• Woodrow Wilson Fellow, 1963
• Ford International Fellow, Stanford University, 1964
• Prize for excellence in teaching, Université de Montréal, 1998
• Emeritus professor, 2002
• Prix Condorcet, 2004

Partial bibliography

• The Code for Global Ethics, Ten humanist Principles, Rodrigue Tremblay, Prometheus, 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-172-1
• The Code for Global Ethics, Toward a Humanist Civilization, Rodrigue Tremblay, Trafford, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4269-1358-7
• Le code pour une éthique globale, vers une civilisation humaniste, Rodrigue Tremblay, Liber, 2009, ISBN 978-2-89578-173-8
• The New American Empire, (in Turkish), Rodrigue Tremblay, Nova publishing, Ankara, Turkey, 2006, ISBN 9944-1-1939-9
• The New American Empire, Rodrigue Tremblay, Infinity, 2004, ISBN 0-7414-1887-8
• Le Nouvel Empire Américain, Causes et conséquences pour les Etats-Unis et pour le monde, Rodrigue Tremblay, L'Harmattan, 2004, ISBN 2-7475-6287-5
• Pourquoi Bush Veut la Guerre, Rodrigue Tremblay, Les Intouchables, 2003, ISBN 2-89549-099-6
• L'Heure Juste, Rodrigue Tremblay, 2002, Stanke International, ISBN 2-7604-0850-7
• Les Grands Enjeux Politiques et Économiques du Québec, Transcontinental Inc., Rodrigue Tremblay, 1999, ISBN 2-89472-115-3.

External links

• "Biography" (in French). Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours. National Assembly of Quebec. http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/deputes/tremblay-rodrigue-5615/index.html. 
• Department of Economics of the Université de Montréal
• University of Montreal
• Economic Papers
• World People
• Human Dignity
• The New American Empire by Rodrigue Tremblay
• Blog on World Geopolitics by Rodrigue Tremblay
• http://www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com
• http://www.lecodepouruneethiqueglobale.com/
• http://www.moralitywithoutreligion.com/

References