Munk, Bharti give millions to Ontario institutions

Two of Toronto’s most successful mining entrepreneurs are opening their wallets wide to help improve major Ontario institutions.

Peter Munk, founder and chairman of Barrick Gold (ABX-T, ABX-N), and his wife, Melanie, have donated $18 million to his namesake cardiac centre at Toronto General Hospital, which is part of the University Health Network (UHN). 

The gift kick-started the “Building the Future: from the heart” $100-million campaign to support human resources and innovation. 

It will help establish six centres of excellence in cardiac research and care, and lure and sustain the brightest minds, says Linda Goldsack, the centre’s campaign chair. She adds it will also facilitate specialized training of medical professionals, and support a multi-purpose operating room with state-of-the-art equipment. 

“Peter and Melanie’s new gifts build on their tremendous support over the eighteen years they have been involved in creating a world-class cardiac centre,” Robert Bell, UHN’s president and CEO, said in a Nov. 24 statement, announcing the campaign’s launch. 

To date, Barrick’s CEO and his wife have invested $65 million in the heart centre. They made an initial $6-million donation in 1997 to get the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre up and running. In the ensuing years, they gave another $6 million, followed by $35 million in 2006. 

“It didn’t take much more than a heartbeat for Melanie and me to support the cardiac centre again,” Munk states. “This facility — and more importantly, the excellence and innovation of its caring professionals – has put Canada’s cardiac care on the world map.”

Peter Munk became interested in healthcare and the UHN through a friend who was on the network’s board, and subsequently died of heart disease, says Vince Borg, Munk’s spokesperson. Munk’s own father and grandfather also passed away from cardiac disease. 

When Munk realized that UHN wanted to establish a serious leading cardiac centre in Canada, he just got enamored with their mission, Borg explains. 

“The [eighteen million] donation is really an investment in supporting the efforts and innovations at the cardiac centre, and the recruitment and retention of the very best cardiac talent there which will allow those surgeons to develop research that will improve cardiac care not only in Toronto and Canada, but around the world,” Borg says. 

Munk’s other philanthropic focus has been the University of Toronto, where he completed his electrical engineering degree in 1957. Last year, he donated $35 million to the university’s Munk School of Global Affairs. 

At Sudbury’s Laurentian University, officials are basking in the largest donation ever made by an individual in the school’s 51-year history, with Forbes & Manhattan chief executive and founder Stan Bharti pledging $10 million for Laurentian’s engineering school, which will be renamed “The Bharti School of Engineering.”

Laurentian University has raised $48.6 million so far in its “Next 50” fundraising campaign, which is partially led by Quadra FNX Mining chairman Terry MacGibbon.

“We have very fond memories of the many years during which we lived and raised our family in Sudbury, and wanted to give back to the community,” explained  Bharti, who once worked as a mining engineer for Falconbridge in Sudbury. “Our family has chosen to invest in Laurentian University because it has an impressive track record and inspiring leadership. We know that our gift will help unlock its incredible potential.”

“I meet regularly across the country with many of the alumni of Laurentian University’s engineering programs. I know they will be thrilled to see their alma mater benefit from such a generous gift from the Bharti family,” commented Laurentian Chancellor Aline Chrétien, wife of former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Laurentian has 400 engineering students working to obtain undergraduate degrees in mining, mechanical and chemical engineering, and in graduate programs at the masters and doctoral levels.

Laurentian students won the last Canadian Engineering Challenge in 2010 after winning the provincial competition two years in a row, and have won the Canadian Mining Games more often than any other university (7 times in the competition’s 20-year history). Laurentian engineering students also won the 2011 NASA Lunabotics Competition, beating out 40 competitors from around the world.