Canadian billionaire makes biggest donation in Canadian history
Gift is the largest donation of its kind by a private citizen to a medical centre
By Emma Crawford Hampel
Jim Pattison, the CEO of the Jim Pattison Group, has donated C$75 million (US$56,092,500) to the St. Paul’s Foundation for the building of the new St. Paul’s at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre in Canada.
According to the foundation, this was the largest donation by a private citizen to a single medial facility ever seen in Canada.
“Jim Pattison’s gift will help us realise an exceptionally rare opportunity to build a major medical and research centre from the ground up that will establish its place among the most highly regarded and recognised medical centres in North America,” Dick Vollet, St. Paul’s Foundation’s president and CEO.
The centre will occupy 18.4 acres in the False Creek Flats. It will include St. Paul’s Hospital, the provincial Heart Centre, Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, outpatient clinics and the PHC Research Institute, among others.
This is not the first gift Pattison has made to a medical institution, but it is the largest. Among his past philanthropy was a 2011 donation of C$5 million (US$3,742,000) to the Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation for its outpatient care and surgery centre.
According to Forbes, Pattison is worth C$5.6 billion (US$4,191,040,000).
