Canada’s magazine since 1905
Summary
EDITOR’S NOTE
IN THIS ISSUE OF MACLEAN’S In the days before my 12-year-old daughter started middle school this fall, I was bombarded with emails from her school board heralding the new smartphone ban, which would...
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EDITOR’S NOTE
EDITOR’S NOTE
IN THIS ISSUE OF MACLEAN’S In the days before my 12-year-old daughter started middle school this fall, I was bombarded with emails from her school board heralding the new smartphone ban, which would...
MACLEAN’S
Empowering Small Businesses
Balinder Ahluwalia, senior vice-president and group head of market development and digital partnerships at Mastercard, Canada, highlights how technology and partnerships enable small businesses to...
COMMENTS
COMMENTS READERS WEIGH IN
TRILLION-DOLLAR BABIES Readers got worked up over “The Jackpot Generation,” Katrina Onstad’s October cover story about Canada’s trillion-dollar generational wealth transfer. Some boomers were...
How Canada is leading the charge in AI-assisted surgery
UHN is out to improve surgery globally, thanks to innovators like Dr. Amin Madani Dr. Amin Madani, a general surgeon and director of the Surgical AI Research Academy at University Health Network...
THE INTERVIEW
Irish-Canadian botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger enjoys whisky and shamrocks—but trees are her true love
DIANA BERESFORD-KROEGER’S early life reads like the stuff of myths, or at least the most heart-wrenching of Disney movies. Orphaned at 13, she bounced around southern Ireland to stay with extended...
THE BIG IDEA
Green-Light Congestion Pricing
In many Canadian cities, traffic is at a standstill. Introducing tolls for drivers would get things moving again. I CAN EASILY PINPOINT the origins of my obsession with public transportation. Growing...
THE PROSPECT
The Bach Star
How B.C. pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko stormed the world stage BEFORE JAEDEN IZIK-DZURKO could read, he would listen raptly as his parents recited The Remarkable Farkle McBride , a book about a child...
THE BUILDING
A PASSION FOR LOCALLY-MADE: Katrina Petryshyn’s Journey Building The Makers Keep
Here’s how this small business owner grew a local artisan community across Alberta When Katrina Petryshyn founded The Makers Keep, her goal was simple: provide local artisans with a place to showcase...
THE RICH LIST
THE RICH LIST
The 40 wealthiest Canadians- and how they made their money WHEN IT COMES TO WEALTH, some things never change. The bulk of Canada’s money is still held by a few at the top. On average, a billionaire...
1THOMSON FAMILY
Media and information distribution $98.15B The late Roy Thomson turned one newspaper into a publishing empire, passing the role of chair—and his peerage title, Baron Thomson of Fleet—to his son,...
2CHANGPENG ZHAO
Cryptocurrency $61.02B Chinese-born crypto king Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, spent his teen years in Canada and graduated from McGill University’s computer science program. He founded the...
3 GALEN WESTON JR.
Groceries and real estate $18.05B Galen Weston Jr. became a household name by appearing as an everyman in a series of television commercials promoting Loblaw’s President’s Choice brand. In 2020, he...
4 IRVING FAMILY
Forestry, oil and construction $14.47B The Irving dynasty has reigned over New Brunswick for well over a century, with a suite of companies that touch nearly every industry in the province, including...
5 MCCAIN FAMILY
Food processing $13.16B In 1957, four brothers from Florenceville, New Brunswick, launched a food-processing company that would change dinnertime forever. Under the leadership of brothers and co-CEOs...
6DAVID CHERITON
Information technology $12.64B Vancouver-born David Cheriton was teaching computer science at Stanford University in California when he met students Sergey Brin and Larry Page. He provided their...
7ROGERS FAMILY
Media and communications $12.47B Ted Rogers famously turned a Toronto radio station into Rogers Communications, a multi-billion-dollar telecom giant that counts among its assets the Toronto Blue Jays,...
9JIM PATTISON
Car dealerships, forestry, grocery and advertising $10.05B At 96, Jim Pattison still oversees the Vancouver-based Jim Pattison Group, the conglomerate he started with a GM dealership in 1961. His...
8 JOSEPH TSAI
E-commerce and sports $11.73B Joseph Tsai holds a 1.4 per cent stake in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant he helped build. Now, as chair, he’s steering Alibaba through a rough patch. Its market...
12RICHARDSON FAMILY
Agriculture, transportation, oil and financial services$9.43B The Canadian grain giant James Richardson & Sons Ltd. is older than Canada itself. Now overseen by fifth-generation president and CEO...
11ALAIN BOUCHARD
Retail$9.62B He’s been called the “King of Convenience” for his dominion over 16,000 convenience stores. Alain Bouchard opened his first shop in 1980, then teamed up with three partners to launch...
10DESMARAIS FAMILY
Financial services$9.96B Paul Desmarais Sr. built a $5-billion fortune through asset management firm Power Corporation of Canada; he died in 2013, leaving a massive inheritance to his four children...
13APOSTOLOPOULOS FAMILY
Real estate and entertainment$9.4B Greek-Canadian brothers Steve (above), Peter and Jim Apostolopoulos control a vast portfolio of commercial properties through Triple Group of Companies, founded by...
16PETER GILGAN
Home construction$8.64B Peter Gilgan’s Mattamy Homes—named after the eldest of his eight children, Matthew and Amy—has built 135,000 homes since 1978 throughout the GTA and across Canada and the...
14 Tobias LÜtke
E-commerce $9.38B Tobias Lütke built the Shopify platform in 2004 to sell snowboards online, but quickly realized there was much more value in the software itself. Today, millions of e-commerce...
15ZEKELMAN FAMILY
Steel$9.1B Barry Zekelman (above) was 19 when his dad died suddenly, leaving his $1.5-million company, Atlas Tube, based near Windsor, Ontario, to Barry and his brothers, Clayton and Alan. The trio...
20GARRETT CAMP
Technology$7.02B Calgary-born Garrett Camp co-founded Uber in 2009, forever revolutionizing the delivery and ride-share industries (and infuriating taxi drivers everywhere). In 2019, Uber went public,...
17ANTHONY VON MANDL
Wine and beverages$8.24B At age 22, Anthony von Mandl was importing wines into Canada and selling them out of the trunk of his car in Vancouver. A few years later, he proclaimed to the Kelowna Chamber...
HOW BILLIONAIRE SPORTS OWNERS ARE CHANGING THE GAME
In the past, owning a sports team was a passion project for wealthy people who made their money in other industries and wanted bragging rights, not profit. But recent industry changes have made sports...
18SAPUTO FAMILY
Food production$7.59B In 1954, Giuseppe Saputo started a small cheese-making business in Montreal. Fifteen years later his son, Emanuele, known as Lino (above left), became president of Saputo and...
19BRUCE FLATT
Investing$7.41B Bruce Flatt took over from Jack Cockwell (page 43) as CEO of Canadian conglomerate Brascan in 2002 and, three years later, refashioned the company into Brookfield Asset Management....
21GAGLARDI FAMILY
Hospitality$7B Even if they don’t know it, most Canadians are familiar with the restaurants and hotels owned by the Gaglardi family. Based in Vancouver, the clan’s Northland Properties owns 175...
22MARK SCHEINBERG
Hospitality and real estate$6.55B Ten years after Mark Scheinberg and his father, Isai, co-founded online poker goliath PokerStars, the U.S. Department of Justice cracked down on the site, alleging it...
23STEPHEN SMITH
Financial services$6.3B Toronto’s Stephen Smith co-founded mortgage lender First National Financial in 1988, developing code that would eventually become the industry’s leading mortgage processing...
27JEFF SKOLL
Technology and film$6.01B As eBay’s first full-time employee and first president, Jeff Skoll wrote the company’s business plan. He became a billionaire in 1998 when he led eBay’s wildly successful...
26LEONID BOGUSLAVSKY
Venture capital$6.21B In the early ’90s, Moscow-born Leonid Boguslavsky built LVS, then one of Europe’s largest IT systems integration businesses and the exclusive distributor of Oracle in the...
25MARK LEONARD AND FAMILY
Software$6.23B Mark Leonard worked as a venture capitalist for 11 years before founding Toronto-based Constellation Software, or CSI, in 1995. His route to success has been through shrewd...
24DENNIS “CHIP” WILSON
Retail$6.28B Lululemon’s founder led the company until it went public in 2007, then stayed on as chair. In 2013, he resigned amid a period of bad PR for the company, including controversial comments...
30RYAN COHEN
Retail and investing$5.46B Ryan Cohen first struck it rich in 2017 when he sold his online pet retailer, Chewy, to PetSmart for US$3.35 billion. In 2021, he joined the board at video game retailer...
31MICHAEL LATIFI
Food processing$4.99B After immigrating from Iran, Michael Latifi’s first job in Canada was flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Decades later, he’s built his fortune in the meat industry, buying up brands...
29DARYL KATZ
Sports and entertainment$5.84B Daryl Katz made his first billions expanding the Rexall pharmacy business and then selling it for $3 billion to U.S. health-care giant McKesson in 2016. By then, he’d...
28CARLO FIDANI
Real estate$5.99B Carlo Fidani was 45 when he took over as chair of the tri-generational family real estate business Fidani and Sons after his father died. Under his leadership, the company, now...
34JEAN COUTU AND FAMILY
Pharmacies$4.62B Jean Coutu (above right) opened his first Pharm-Escomptes Jean Coutu in Montreal in 1969, later expanding across La Belle Province and into Ontario, New Brunswick and the U.S. The...
33JACQUES D’AMOURS
Retail$4.8B In 1980, Jacques D’Amours partnered with Alain Bouchard (page 36) and two others to launch Alimentation Couche-Tard, a convenience store giant based in Laval, Quebec, with US$69 billion in...
35N. MURRAY EDWARDS
Natural resources$4.6B Murray Edwards transformed Canadian Natural Resources from a four-employee operation into one of the biggest oil and gas producers in Canada. He currently serves as chair and...
36SOBEY FAMILY
Grocery$4.49B More than 100 years after John William (J.W.) Sobey, a butcher in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, began delivering meat door-to-door by horse-drawn wagon, his eponymous business has transformed...
32LALJI FAMILY
Real estate and hospitality$4.86B Aminmohamed Lalji (above) and his family fled Uganda in the 1970s. They landed in Vancouver and founded Larco Investments, snapping up shopping malls, hotels and...
38MITCHELL GOLDHAR
Real estate$4.06B In the early ’90s, Mitchell Goldhar scoped out what he thought would be ideal locations for Walmart-anchored shopping centres across Canada. Then he bought them up and wooed Walmart...
39LAWRENCE STROLL
Fashion and racing$3.54B Lawrence Stroll and Hong Kong fashion tycoon Silas Chou bought an equity stake in luxury designer Michael Kors back in 2003, took it public in 2011 and later cashed out for...
37SERGE GODIN
Information technology$4.11B Serge Godin founded IT consulting firm CGI at age 26 with just $5,000 in savings. Over the next 30 years, he oversaw its growth into one of the largest business and IT...
40JACK COCKWELL
Investing$3.42B South Africa–born Jack Cockwell was in his twenties when he started working for the large Canadian conglomerate Edper, owned by Edward and Peter Bronfman. Cockwell led the...
FEATURES
Schools vs. Screens
THIS FALL, PROVINCES FROM COAST TO COAST CONFIDENTLY ANNOUNCED THAT THEY WERE BANNING PHONES IN THE CLASSROOM. IT’S NOT GOING WELL. This past September, on the first day of class, an Ontario high...
MACLEAN’S
Managing Diabetes Redefining Diabetes and Ending Stigma
Let’s make time to change the conversation about diabetes this Diabetes Awareness Month. November is Diabetes Awareness Month, a time for people in Canada to show support for those affected by...
FEATURES
Death of a Dream
As Canada tries to staunch an overflow of temporary immigration, tens of thousands of international students and recent grads may be forced to leave the country. Here are their stories. OR DECADES,...
MACLEAN’S
Lung Health Using a Puffer? You May Need a Spacer
Trish Carter, a 47-year-old mother of two and former Ontario resident has had asthma since she was 20. “At first, I didn’t know what it was,” she recalls. “I just chronically had a cough and shortness...
Choosing a Smoke Free Life
The will to quit: sharing one personal quitting journey to inspire others with similar goals. Those who’ve gone through it are the first to say that quitting smoking is difficult. However, with the...
Providing Hope to Lung Cancer Patients with the ALK Subtype
Perceived as a smoker’s disease, lung cancer is increasing among non-smokers with a specific gene mutation. New targeted therapies are improving outcomes. In early 2019, Gerald Green, 58, of...
CULTURE
A SWEET SCANDAL
THE STICKY Amazon Prime December 6 OVER SEVERAL MONTHS in 2011 and 2012, more than 3,000 tonnes of liquid gold—nearly $20 million worth—was siphoned in Quebec and stolen by a crime syndicate, one of...
A POPPY SUBVERSION
FROM WARHOL TO BANKSY Art Gallery of Greater Victoria December 14 to April 27 POP ART IS MORE than just Campbell’s soup cans. While certain 1960s American counterculture classics—like Roy...
MY ARRIVAL
“I fled Sudan’s civil war. Rebuilding my life in Canada is a battle of its own.”
My family and I escaped with only a plastic bag full of possessions. In Toronto, we live in a tiny refugee shelter and can’t find work. IN THE LATE 1970S, I left Sudan to study political science in...
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