This article is part of our February Special Report on Philanthropy in Canada. To see all the articles so far, click here.

Sitting in a hospital waiting room, staying calm before an appointment, you might notice a plaque on the wall acknowledging a donation from a benefactor. The effect is subtle, but for a second it can feel like a lifeline, a hint of support from the world outside.

That’s the kind of dialogue Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto looks to create. When the Garron family, which made its wealth in the auto sector, publicly announced its gift of $50 million a decade ago, it was at the time the largest gift of its kind to a community hospital in Canada. 

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Why nature is a serious longevity lab

When we want to understand what is possible in biology, there is no better “research program” than evolution. Across millions of years, nature has tested countless variations of the same core problem: how to keep a complex body functioning under constant stress, including pathogens, inflammation, injury, metabolic strain and the slow accumulation of molecular errors.

The remarkable part is not that animals differ. It is that they differ while using much of the same cellular toolkit that humans have, such as DNA repair, immune defences, energy metabolism, protein quality control, and tissue renewal. Evolution rarely invents from scratch. Instead, it tunes and recombines existing systems.

This article is brought to you by The Thalion Initiative.

Wealth coach Kelly Willis Green explores extreme frugality in the presence of abundance, and how advisors can respond

The Montreal-based investment management veteran discusses his philosophy, his interest in families, and the power of connection