Edith Graef McGeer - Society for Neuroscience

Patrick L. McGeer and Edith GraefMcGeer 359
The NDP had started a compulsory automobile insurance company
known as the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which immediately
became Canada's largest insurance company. To gain political favor,
the NDP had set automobile premiums at a ridiculously low level. Pat
became the reluctant president and chairman of the board, in addition to
his duties as minister of education and science. On the day in December
1975 when Pat assumed his new duties, the corporation ran out of money
and had to borrow from the bank. The scientific solution to the problem
was easy—double the premiums to make income equal outgo. The political
solution was not so easy. Petitions protesting the increases were signed by
hundreds of thousands of disgruntled car owners.
That spring, the American Society for Neurochemistry held its annual
meeting in Vancouver. We were in charge of the local organizing committee.
The arriving delegates were amused to see bumper stickers on taxi
cabs and private automobiles everywhere that said 'Stick it in your ear,
McGeer.' Pat survived the protest but not without sacrificing a good deal
of popularity.
Premier Bennett, understanding the opportunity to take advantage of
Pat's scientific background, placed him in charge of promoting science and
encouraging scientific industry. Politicians can develop policy but must
rely on others for administration. Policies, therefore, can be no better than
the ability of others to make them work. With respect to scientific policies,
this is a significant problem for all governments. For example, Pat instituted
a program of grants to be given to academic and industrial scientists,
but there was no way government could administer them. He had to create
a British Columbia Science Council of volunteer professionals to make the
program work.
Over the years in government, Pat oversaw the development of an Open
Learning Institute for satellite education in the remote parts of British
Columbia as well as the formation of 11 new institutes and colleges. He
encouraged the foundation of industrial parks at the major universities
and the development of industry-liaison offices within the universities.
Such offices have been one of the most lasting successes of all his initiatives.
Pat also had portfolios for communication and, in his last year in
1986, international trade. He was responsible for the British Columbia
Pavilion and official visitors to British Columbia in the world's fair of
EXPO '86. These were busy times, but Pat kept up his scientific work. Edie
kept him briefed on both the literature and the laboratory, and the postdocs
adjusted to strange hours. Pat would meet with them in the evenings
as well as on weekends. He managed to contribute to 150 papers during
that period as well as cowrite both editions of Molecular Neurobiology of
the Mammalian Brain with Sir John Eccles and Edie. He also attended the
annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in each of those years, and
in three of them he was a traveling Grass lecturer.