Mr. Philanthropy: Here’s why billionaire Peter Gilgan can’t stop giving away his money

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Carnegie famously wrote the Gospel of Wealth, an essay encouraging the wealthy to give away their fortunes within their lifetimes to the benefit of the community, hence the 2,500-plus libraries he funded, including more than 100 in Canada.

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Carnegie did not part with every last penny, but he came pretty close, doling out 90 per cent of his wealth by the time of his death in 1919.

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Canadians, on the other hand, tend to stick to the more Anglo-aristocratic tradition of keeping a low profile. They aren’t cheap, but are not even half as generous as Americans, according to a 2022 study looking at philanthropy in the two countries by Carleton University professor Susan Phillips.

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Part of the giving gap could be perceptual, Summers said, since Canadians are raised with the erroneous understanding that government pays for health care, education and a bunch of other things, so the need to give to public institutions is not uppermost in mind.

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For example, the province does not pay up when a hospital needs a new MRI machine, nor does it pay for the renovations required to install it. Ontario has committed to funding a sizable chunk of St. Joseph’s expansion budget, but the hospital foundation still has to raise 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the estimated cost, or about $300 million, meaning Gilgan’s gift is just a start.

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“Canadians pay a lot of money to support our health-care system through our taxes and our governments do a good job of funding us in a variety of different ways,” Maria Dyck, president of the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation, said.

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“But what governments don’t do, and what people aren’t as aware of, is that if you want to buy equipment, most of that is not funded, and if you want to do renovation projects or programmatic enhancements, a lot of that is not funded, and so philanthropy plays a crucial role in Canadian health care.”

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She said most of the hospital care Canadians receive is in community hospitals, such as St. Joe’s, but major research and university teaching hospitals typically attract more transformative donations because if you need a heart transplant, they are the ones you are going to visit.

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“A best-in-class community hospital raises between $15 million and $20 million a year, but a best-in-class academic health science centre can raise $150 million to $200 million a year,” Dyck said. “And that isn’t because community hospitals offer less, but often I think the public perceives there to be a difference in terms of value.”

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Gilgan gives money to both, so he clearly gets the score. He is also not someone who needs to be asked to write a cheque; the Gilgan Foundation’s motto is to give without being asked.

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He keeps tabs on what other philanthropists are up to, and he is aware that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have pledged to give most of their money away by the time of their death or soon after — as Carnegie did.

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Gilgan admires the plan, but sees a different approach, where his for-profit business keeps making money and his heirs keep giving it away long after he is gone.

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“I look at it as a multi-generational enterprise,” he said.

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Before leaving the event, Gilgan, dressed stylishly in white pants and matching shoes, was given the last word and he used it to uncork a “more or less true” story about his childhood love of peanut butter and banana sandwiches and being an altar boy at St. Benedict Catholic Church.

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Non-Catholics may not be aware that eating before receiving communion was once a mortal sin. But even altar boys get hungry, especially eight-year-old ones, so it was that the “devil got” Gilgan on his way to church as he wolfed down one of the peanut butter and banana sandwiches he had prepared for lunch and took communion anyway, a sin he finally copped to two years later.

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“Father Breen said, ‘Well, it took you a long time to acknowledge this, so I am going to give you a long time to do the penance,’ and he said, ‘I want you to give $100 million to the hospital you were born in,’” Gilgan said. “I asked him whether I could do it in-time payments, and he said, ‘Yes, you have got some time, but your life is finite, so we have to hurry up and get this done.'”

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