Photo: Alec Bruce 36 | Atlantic Business Magazine | September/October 2012 Online extras: atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | 37 Photo: Alec Bruce On any given day, at any other time of the year, you might find one of Canada’s wealthiest women and most prominent philanthropists behind a podium giving a fundraising speech, or before fellow establishmentarians preaching the good gospel of social works, or, perhaps, entertaining her children and brood of grandkids at her spacious and tastefully garnished home in the heart of Toronto’s Rosedale district. But on this day, an achingly beautiful late June morning, you find Margaret Norrie McCain at the end of Ollie’s Loop, where Covey Road winds down through the junipers, firs and jack pines, past the azaleas and elderberries, all the way to the sea, near Hackett’s Cove, and a view only the rich can afford. For this is Nova Scotia’s South Shore: “You know,” she continues, “in the past year, The playground of international yachtsmen, I’ve lost two significant men. One gave me American trust-fund babies, Halifax’s greatest love, a family and a life. The other gave me a (if not necessarily noblest) families, and other mission.” denizens of unreachable privilege. This, The “one” was Wallace McCain, her husband McCain explains, is her summer sanctuary, of 56 years who died, at age 81, on May 13, 2011. a sylvan splash of land at which you arrive, The “other” was Fraser Mustard, her mentor of through gates, and only by invitation. And you nearly 20 years who died, at age 84, on November are welcome, even though she knows you are 16, 2011. It would be facile and, frankly, flat armed with questions about how the other half wrong to say these men animated her life, as if lives or, more precisely, how a charter member they were twin Svengalis to her Trilby. But, in of the nation’s “one per cent” gives away a meaningful ways, they played principal roles in massive chunk of her late husband’s fortune to the evolution of her world view, including her the other 99 before the sun sets on yet another attitudes towards philanthropy. exemplary life. Wallace, the son of a successful potato broker “I’m 78 this fall,” she declares almost in Carleton County, New Brunswick, rose to cheerfully under the patio umbrella. “I don’t become one of Canada’s most accomplished expect to live that long. But let’s say I live 20 businessmen. years.” With his brother Harrison, he built a frozen She pauses, as if startled by the substance of french fry empire that spanned six continents. her own statement. Later, he chaired the board of Toronto-based 38 | Atlantic Business Magazine | September/October 2012 Locaux à louer ou à vendre Locals for sale or rent In New Brunswick, translators mean a lot… when it comes to avoiding embarrassing moments. tnbt.ca/locals Funded by the Government of Canada’s Canadian Language Sector Enhancement Program Maple Leaf Foods – a job he repeatedly insisted was virtually ceremonial – where his son, Michael, presided as CEO. Forbes Magazine once pegged his personal fortune at close to $2.3 billion (U.S.), making him, for a time, the country’s 13th richest individual. Mustard was a physician and internationally renowned expert on early childhood development, a subject he framed under the rubric, “the socioeconomic determinants of human development and health.” A co-founder of McMaster University’s medical school and the intellectual fountainhead of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research between 1982 and 1996, he pioneered The Early Years studies (in which Margaret, herself, is listed as a co-author), a series MAKE THESE of three seminal reports (1999, 2007 and 2010) which advocated, among other things, a system of early childhood MAKE SENSE education that recognized this stage in a person’s life as, he once wrote, “equal to or, in some cases, greater in importance for the quality of the next generation than the periods children and youth spend” in primary or secondary schools. Superficially, the differences between these two men could not have been more striking. One was a titan of industry, a captain of capitalism. The other was, for lack of a more formal designation, an egghead. But they shared at least one fundamental ethic: They were convinced that people who possessed sufficient resources – intellectual, material or both – could not only change the world for the better, but had a responsibility to do so. “Both Wallace and I grew up in homes where commitment to community and philanthropy to the degree that you are capable of giving was part of our family culture,” McCain says. “Meeting people in the 1930s at the back door. It happened in both homes. Education was a religion, along with faith ... Wallace happened to be very successful in life. He always believed he was obliged to give back. More than this, though, he wanted very much to give back. In his dying days, he said it was more fun to give it away than it was to make it.” In fact, Mustard and Wallace shared another trait: An abiding belief in the value of discipline and rigor. This found expression, in the former, in his systematic approach to the research, development and evaluation of early childhood development programs. In the latter – who once said his favorite subject in university was math – it manifested iParks Moncton MAKE THESE MAKE SENSE When Wallace and Margaret McCain founded their Family Foundation, Wallace provided $25 million as an asset base so that the organization could commit a million dollars annually towards early childhood development. in his strict, by-the-numbers approach to and Wallace agreed to fund this past year commercial operations. – amounts to some $50 million. That’s on Now that they are gone, these qualities top of the roughly $45-50 million they had of mind – a passionate commitment to already dispersed to various organizations improving the life of others and a devotion in the handful of years before his death. to structure and strategy – purchase When done, she ball parks, the better part nearly every waking moment of Margaret of $200 million will be gone – if not all McCain’s time. before she dies, then eventually. In fact, “Philanthropy is far more than writing that’s exactly how she puts it: “Eventually, a check,” she says. “There is charitable everything will be gone.” philanthropy and there’s strategic She utters these words almost gleefully. philanthropy. And we’ve done both ... But But there’s also the ring of solemnity let’s say I do live another 20 years. I have in her voice, as if she has embraced a to be effective. And effective philanthropy profound, even sacred, duty. “You know,” is focussed. It’s based on intelligence and she says, “our kids are not going to be knowledge of the issues.” hungry or cold, because they inherited the It is, in effect, a business, like any other. shares in Wallace’s companies before he And to be successful, it needs a plan. died. We were given a liquid piece of that specifically to give away, and, of course, The list is as long as it is impressive: to keep me until I die. I now handle the The Canadian Women’s Foundation, the dispersement. That’s the plan we agreed Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, on. We talked about it. We worked on it. and the Muriel McQueen Ferguson That’s my job.” Foundation, which funds research into Ultimately, though, these legacy gifts the causes, incidence and forms of family do not comprise the strictly “strategic violence. And then there are the institutes philanthropy” in which she is otherwise of higher learning: The University of engaged. Her real passion is the Margaret and Toronto, Mount Allison, the University of & Wallace McCain Family Foundation New Brunswick, Dalhousie, St. F.X., and whose board members include, apart Mount Saint Vincent University. And the from herself, her sons Michael and Scott, and her daughters Martha and Eleanor. ’ health centres: Women’s College Hospital, you re St. Mike’s, Princess Margaret Hospital, Its mission is “To champion effective and the Centre for Addiction and Mental early childhood programs across Canada Health. that provide equal opportunities for all Altogether, McCain estimates that children, align with the school system and there. the first round of what she calls “legacy operate within a provincial or territorial gifts” – the cornucopia of charities she framework.” iParks Moncton Great philanthropic leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Bill Clinton have moved, and are moving towards, using their resources to make a difference proactively, rather than reactively. Michael McCain More than this, its objectives are Bertrand was not able to comment for people a piece of her mind from time to both specific and transformational: “In this piece before press time, but in the time. One of the worst crimes you could selected Atlantic Canada communities, to acknowledgments of Early Years Study 3, commit was apathy.” transform existing public health, family the authors (McCain, Mustard and Kerry Truly, Margaret Norrie Sr. wasn’t the support, child care and early education McCuaig, a policy fellow at the Atkinson kind of woman with whom one could resources into effective integrated Centre of the Ontario Institute for Studies trifle. And the stories about her iron early childhood programs that provide in Education) testify that she had been resolve in Colchester County, Nova Scotia opportunities for all young children “our brain trust through three Early Years – where she and her husband settled with and their families; amplify efforts to put studies.