Businessman David McLean was the chair of CN during its privatization

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David McLean spent part of his childhood living above a Canadian National Railways station in rural Alberta and eventually became the chair of the company, guiding its privatization. Mr. McLean also practised law, specialising in real estate, then started his own business, which expanded into areas as diverse as real estate, a giant film studio in Vancouver and a helicopter company. He died in Vancouver on Jan. 23 at the age of 86.

David George Alexander McLean was born in Calgary on June 25, 1938. His father, Frank, was the station master in Beiseker, Alta., and the family lived above the train station. David’s mother, Agnes (née Campbell), was in her 40s during her pregnancy with David and she insisted her husband drive her to Calgary for the birth. They drove for two hours along a rough dirt road from Beiseker, which sits in farm country about halfway between Calgary and Drumheller.

“She told my father she didn’t want to write Beiseker on the birth certificate,” Mr. McLean wrote in his memoir, A Road Taken.

It was a good thing the delivery was in a big city hospital: David weighed 13 pounds at birth. He grew to be a large man.

The family quarters above the ticketing office were spartan; it was a short walk in all weather to the outhouse and the well. The family left Beiseker when David was about six years old and they spent most of their time in Edmonton, where his father continued to work for CN.

David did well in high school; he was a star athlete and a leader in Boy Scouts. He was tall and looked older than his age, so at 14 he managed to land a well-paying “adult” summer job in a warehouse while his friends were delivering newspapers.

He went to the University of Alberta, where he played basketball – it helped that he was 6-foot-3 – and earned a law degree. Mr. McLean started a law firm, McLean Hungerford and Simon, and specialized in real estate. For a while he taught real estate law at the University of British Columbia where he was an acknowledged expert on the new condominium law, something that helped him not only in his law practice but in his future real estate business.

In 1968, Mr. McLean moved to Vancouver and so did his father when he retired with a pension from CN. Mr. McLean’s first real estate deal was developing his father’s house in Edmonton, into a small apartment building, which left enough money to buy his father a house in Vancouver along with a profit.

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When David McLean saw Brenda McCuaig, it was love at first sight.

“We met in an elevator, and she was stunning,” wrote Mr. McLean. Eventually he proposed, suggesting they take their honeymoon in New York, where Mr. McLean had a business meeting with two Vancouver businessmen. She accepted. Brenda McLean was involved in the business from the start. She also had Alberta connections: Her great-grandfather was the first premier of Alberta, Alexander Cameron Rutherford, who was a Liberal. The family remained staunch Liberals.

“My father worked hard as a real estate lawyer, but he started to feel like he wanted to be on the other side of the table and doing what some of his clients were doing,” Jason McLean said. In 1972, David McLean branched out on his own, starting The McLean Group.

Mr. McLean’s knowledge of condominium law came in handy. Early on he and a partner owned a rental building and were having trouble filling it. The building became a condominium and sold out.

The McLean Group has developed more than 2,000 condominiums in British Columbia, Alberta and the United States, according to the company’s website. Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver was a huge project Mr. McLean developed with partners.

“There’s no doubt the biggest real estate deal that we ever did was the 30-plus acres of land at Boundary and Grandview [in Vancouver],” Jason said. “It now includes Walmart, and a bunch of other industrial users, including Vancouver Film Studios, which we started.”

David McLean was “one of those rare Alberta Liberals,” according to his son, and he had been on the board of CN in the 1980s. But in 1994 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked him to be chair, a position he held until 2014. In 1995, Mr. Chrétien’s Liberal government took the Crown corporation private, which at the time was the largest initial public offering in Canadian history.

Mr. McLean spent almost all his time in Vancouver but would go to Montreal for CN business about once a month. For all the years he was CN’s chair, he stayed in the same suite in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, which is connected to CN’s offices.

As chair of Canadian National, he sometimes faced angry shareholders at the annual general meeting.

“Some people would get up and say how out of touch the board members were, which happens at most of these meetings from time to time,” Jason said. “My father was able to answer, ‘I know the life of a railroading family well,’ and say how he grew up above the rural train station.”

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One of the perks of the CN appointment was the use of a private rail car. At one stage Mr. McLean took some family members and friends to Beiseker, where he grew up, though by then the train station there had been torn down.

Mr. McLean had to deal with some tough executives, including E. Hunter Harrison, the American railroader who eventually became CEO of CN.

“You run the board, David, and I’ll run the company,” was a quote from Mr. Harrison in Mr. McLean’s autobiography. Mr. McLean outlasted the fiery Mr. Harrison, who left CN to head rival railroad Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.

When he wasn’t dealing with his board duties at CN, Mr. McLean was busy running his film business in Vancouver, among other things. In the 1980s the McLean Group bought NorthStar International Studios in Vancouver. That expanded into one of the family-run firm’s largest holdings, and one that had a dramatic effect on Vancouver’s place in the world of television and film production.

“In the 1980s there was an influx of productions that came not just for the great scenery and lower production costs but for the expertise of local crews,” Mr. McLean wrote. In the spring of 1998, he travelled to Los Angeles and visited hundreds of different sound stages to see what was needed.

He had the land and the empty buildings, but he needed more money to get it off the ground. He met B.C. Premier Glen Clark at a function and bingo, the government made a loan where banks would not. Construction started on six sound stages in 1999; today there are 13 along with other production facilities.

“At the time, we had demand, and we had skilled crews, tax credits, but we didn’t have the infrastructure that we needed,” Jason said. “I would say my father was one of the builders of Hollywood North. Vancouver is consistently number three in North America after L.A. and New York in terms of production value.”

The productions filmed at Vancouver Film Studios include the movies Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), and TV series Bates Motel (2013 to 2017) and Arrow (2012 to 2020).

The McLean Group sold the film studio in 2023.

It seems there wasn’t a business the McLeans weren’t interested in. Sacha, one of Mr. McLean’s two sons, was a keen pilot and for a while the company owned a fixed-wing aircraft but then they bought Blackcomb Helicopters. Today it is a flourishing business operating 16 helicopters of varying sizes in British Columbia and Alberta.

“We’re the largest provider of helicopter services to BC Hydro and we do a lot of firefighting as, sadly, the fire seasons are longer and more consistent,” Jason said. “And we have a tourism part of the business primarily based in the Whistler region involving sightseeing and heli-skiing.”

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David McLean remained a basketball fan and was over the moon to see an NBA team come to Vancouver in 1995. When the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Tennessee in 2001, Mr. McLean switched his allegiance to the Thunderbirds, the men’s basketball team at UBC. He got to know the coaching staff and followed the team closely, even travelling to Halifax for a major match.

Mr. McLean helped in a major fundraising campaign for the University of Alberta, was chair of the board of governors of the University of British Columbia, chair of both the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Vancouver Board of Trade. He was a member of the Order of British Columbia and was awarded four honorary doctorates.

Mr. McLean leaves his wife, Brenda; sons, Jason and Sacha; and five grandchildren.

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