Page 23 - An Innovation Spirit ...

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Why is philanthropy so
important to you?
Once you’ve made money, you
have to make a decision within
yourself around what you
intend to do with that money.
I didn’t want to create a bunch
of rich and spoiled children and
grandchildren with lots of cars
and big homes. It gives you more
satisfaction when you look back
at the end of your life and see
what you accomplished in the
community and in society.
As well, I came here as an
immigrant. I went through
the war and was taken in by
Canada. I have enormous
appreciation for what Canada
as a country has to offer the
world. Canadians are respected
as human beings, mostly because
we have a tradition of self-help
and civic responsibility to a
much greater extent than any
other community. I came here,
and I was given it all, with all
of the fantastic benefits and
inclusiveness and opportunities
to create a fulfilled life. So I want an enormous amount of money
to try and reciprocate.
Why did you make health
care, and specifically cardiac
medicine, a focus of your
giving?
When I made money, I selected
three priorities [for giving],
but No. 1 was the one I thought
would be most universally helpful
to Canadians, regardless of
nationality, ethnicity, age, religion that whether I’m in Quebec,
and culture. That’s health. We
all have health issues, so this is
something really meaningful. In
the early 1990s, I sat down with
the chair of the hospital and the
board and I looked at various
options, and I was told that
cardiac issues were the largest
cause of death. They felt that with
new facilities and new
equipment – and funds
that could attract
global talent –
that they could
make a major
improvement.
It remains an
issue today.
Winter 2016
What’s your opinion of
Canada’s health-care system?
You may think I’m just saying
this, but the more you travel,
and the more you meet friends
from Europe and from America
and Latin America – and in my
business and in my life I do an
awful lot of travel – the more you
appreciate how spectacular the
health system is in Canada. So
that became my main motivating
force – to contribute to the
health-care system. Before 1993,
there was no cardiac centre, so
my initial gift helped establish it.
Has heart disease affected your
own life?
My uncle, who brought me to
Canada, died of heart failure. I
had a procedure several months
ago – I had blocked valves.
It was an operation with a
brand-new methodology called
Transcatheter Aortic Valve
Implantation (TAVI). It’s a major
breakthrough. You can now do
valve repair operations without
open heart surgery. That saves
and reduces the time people have
to spend in intensive care. I got
out in two or three days. It was a
spectacular thing.
What other innovations are you
excited about?
I have to be frank: I’m not
a medical man, and I’m not
that familiar with specific
breakthroughs. All I know is
Vancouver, New York or
wherever, people talk quite a
bit about health. It used to be,
‘How is your skiing?’ or, ‘How
was the cocktail party?’ But now
it’s health. I am excited about
Toronto and how the city is
excelling and becoming known
increasingly globally for its
outstanding contribution
to health care and in
the field of cardiac
research. It’s people that you have?
like Dr. Tirone
David and others
who are developing
new methodologies,
who are doing the
work. I’m and I see that because of what
just able to help create something
outstanding for Canada and for
Toronto and, at the same time,
help the maximum amount of
Canadians.
in 2010, you gave $18-million to
fund five chairs in the hopes of
keeping Canadian talent here
and attracting global talent to
toronto. Why is curbing “brain
drain” something you wanted
to take on?
That was actually an important
part of our initial presentation
years ago. Dr. Tirone David, who
is now a world-recognized leader
in valve replacement, would have
been forced to go to America to
do his work. However, 15 years
ago we gave him $5-million to
do the research that led to his
life-saving work. He said to me
that he would have been forced
to move himself and his wife and
kids to the Cleveland Clinic if it
weren’t for these funds.
You can’t expect public health
to do this. It looks after you when excellence. People will think of it
you break your leg. New research
is costly; it needs lab space and
travel and access to information
and many other things. That’s
where private funding can come
in. Here’s another example. [Dr.]
Peter Pisters is the new President
and CEO of the University
Health Network. He was born
and educated in Canada and
then went off to America. He’s
a brilliant guy and became a
real big shot at the Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
and at the University of Texas
MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Now’s he’s back in Toronto. So
we’re now able to recapture lost
talent, and that’s entirely due to
what they see as the large influx
of funds that enable them to do
things here.
Do you see other successful
Canadians donating funds to
health care in the same way
I can only tell you that every time make decisions, my foundation,
I go into a meeting at the Peter
Munk Cardiac Centre, I look at
the wall of donors. I sit down
with the head of the foundations,
we’ve done, starting in 1993 –
we’ve put out around $65-million
– multiples of that have come in
from other individuals. Friends
of mine, not friends of mine, old
patients, and I say, ‘Wow!’ So we
started something, but it’s really
now a self-generating process.
But anyone can write a cheque
when they’re wealthy. It’s what
is done with that cheque that
matters. I didn’t select [Dr.]
Tirone David or Dr. Bob Bell
[former UHN CEO] or Dr.
Barry Rubin [Medical Director
of the PMCC]. I didn’t select the
equipment that’s been bought.
I didn’t design the layout of the
fantastic operating facility they
have. What the money has done
is allow all of the people who
work on cardiac cases to focus in
this area because it had funding
that other departments didn’t
have.
What does the future hold for
the PMCC?
I can see the Cardiac Centre
becoming the symbol of
when they think of Toronto, just
like people think of Rochester
[, Minn.,] when they think of
the Mayo Clinic or they think
Houston when they think of the
[MD] Anderson Cancer Center.
There’s no question that as the
population increases, health
issues will become a bigger
and bigger priority, and I think
that every institution, whether
it’s a university, a business or a
hospital, has to identify an area of
priority where they want to excel.
You can’t excel across the field,
but you can excel if you focus.
Will you continue to fund the
Centre?
There’s no doubt that we’ll be
here. I said that when I made my
first speech. This is priority No.
1, and we’re not going to walk
away. Our support for the [Peter
Munk] Cardiac Centre is going to
be there in perpetuity. After my
death, when I’m not around to
which is the main beneficiary
of my estate, will continue this.
It’s already negotiating with the
[Peter Munk] Cardiac Centre for
ongoing support.
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