Timothy Escott Reid was born on February 21, 1936 in Toronto. He attended the University of Toronto and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959. He was a star athlete for the University of Toronto in athletics and football. He received an M.A. in economics from Yale University in 1960 and was selected as a Rhodes scholar that year to attend Oxford University. He returned to Canada from Oxford in 1962, and completed his Oxford M.Litt thesis studying the policies of James Coyne in 1965. Upon returning to Canada, he was selected by the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Canadian Football League and played in the infamous 1962 50th Grey Cup game known as the "Fog Bowl". In the fall of 1962, he was hired by the University of Toronto as an instructor in Canadian economic history. In 1963, he became the Assistant to the President of York University and an assistant professor of Economics at York University. During his time as a faculty member at York University, he was editor of the books Contemporary Canada: Readings in Economics (1969) and, with his wife Julyan Reid, Student Power and the Canadian Campus (1969).
In 1965 he ran as the Federal Liberal candidate in the Toronto riding of Danforth in 1965. He then successfully campaigned in the 1967 provincial election winning the riding of Scarborough East. He served as a member of five Standing Committees during the 28th Legislative Assembly of Ontario and as the Critic for Education and University Affairs. He held that post until 1971. After his election defeat Tim Reid took a position with the OECD in Paris as a Principal Administrator in the Manpower and Social Affairs Directorate. In 1974, he returned to Canada and took a position in the federal civil service as the Director of the Treasury Board's Planning Branch. Reid held increasing senior positions, in a variety of federal Departments, culminating in terms as Assistant Deputy Minister at the Departments of Regional Economic Expansion, Industry and Tourism.
In 1985, Reid was appointed as Dean of the School of Business Management at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, a position he held until 1988. While in that position, he was also served as a Member of the Executive Committee of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) and he served, for one term, as a part-time Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission.
From 1989-1998, Reid was the President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Reid served on many boards of directors, including VIA Rail Canada from 2000–2006, and as an Alumni Governor on the Governing Council of the University of Toronto from 2002 to 2011.