His name was synonymous with the supermarket chain of which he was chief financial officer, but most of Arnold Steinberg’s life was devoted to higher education and health care, especially associated with his beloved alma mater, McGill University.
Steinberg, who was McGill’s 18th and first Jewish chancellor, died suddenly on Dec. 11 at age 82. Steinberg was also founding chairman of the board of the McGill University Health Centre.
“Arnold was a prince of a man,” said former principal and vice-chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum, who worked closely with Steinberg during his five-year term, which ended last year. “He shaped McGill, Montreal and Canada in deeply progressive and positive ways – uniquely, indelibly.
“He influenced everyone he met through his gracious warmth, joyous optimism and incisive intelligence.”
His chancellorship capped 60 years of service to McGill. At his death he held the title of chancellor emeritus. Steinberg was also revered in the Jewish community for leadership and philanthropy. In September, he was named man of the year by the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal. He served on the executive committee of Federation CJA and the foundation’s investment committee.
Among the many organizations he supported, in close collaboration with wife Blema, were the Jewish Public Library, Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors, Mount Sinai Hospital and YM-YWHA.
Although Steinberg was destined for a career in the family business after graduating from McGill in 1954 with a bachelor of commerce (a Harvard MBA followed), he always had a keen interest in improving public health.
In the 1960s, as a senior Steinberg’s executive, he partnered with the Montreal Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Charles Scriver to campaign for adding vitamin D to milk as an effective way to prevent rickets, then still rampant in Quebec. Steinberg’s major milk supplier refused to add the vitamin, so Steinberg issued an ultimatum: do it or lose the contract with the province’s largest supermarket chain. It worked and rickets became a scourge of the past in the province.
Steinberg would go on to serve as chairman of the board of governors of the McGill University-Montreal Children’s Hospital Research Institute for 19 years, and later 10 years on McGill’s board of governors.
In the past decade, one of his and his wife’s key philanthropic interests has been McGill’s Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning, the first health-care training facility of its kind in Canada when it opened in 2006. In Octo- ber, the Steinbergs donated an additional $7.5 million for its expansion and to up- grade its technology. The funding will let it bring together education and research and, in the near future, patient and com- munity education, under one roof. The gift brought the couple’s total donations to McGill to more than $17 million.
Another activity that absorbed him in latter years was, until 2010, chairing the board of Canada Health Infoway, a joint federal-provincial-territorial initiative to develop electronic health information systems in Canada. The work complemented his responsibilities with the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the largest of the federal government’s funding agencies.
Steinberg was the son of Nathan Steinberg, one of the children of Ida Steinberg, who founded the grocery store in 1917, which grew into Quebec’s first modern supermarket chain. After the family sold the business in 1989 (it folded three years later), Steinberg became co-owner of the investment holding firm Cleman Ludmer Steinberg Inc.
McGill principal Suzanne Fortier said: “Arnold’s five-year tenure as chancellor of McGill University was extraordinary… he brought to the job a boundless curiosity and focused intelligence.”
Among other honours, Steinberg was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1993, he received an honorary doctorate from McGill in 2000 and the Université de Montréal in 2009, and was made an officer of the Order of Quebec in 2013.
Besides Blema, a McGill professor emeritus of political science, Steinberg is survived by their children, Margot, Donna and Adam, and five grandchildren.
