Philanthropist Albrechtsen’s foundation makes record-setting $27M donation to CancerCare Manitoba By: Malak Abas Posted: 4:05 PM CDT Wednesday, May. 31, 2023

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Paul Albrechtsen wasn’t one for the spotlight, but a record-breaking donation made in his name to CancerCare Manitoba announced Wednesday has further cemented his place as one of the most prolific philanthropists the province has ever had.

Three years after his death, the Paul Albrechtsen Foundation has donated $27 million to the CancerCare Foundation, the largest charitable gift to a health-care organization in Manitoba’s history.

“I really wish he could have been here today. He would have been smiling, but not speaking,” Scott Albrechtsen, Paul’s son and president of the foundation, said Wednesday. “And he would have been proud, in his humble way.”

The funding will largely go to renewing three floors of the CancerCare Manitoba Research Institute to bring them up to date and allow an expansion of research programming. Along with this $17 million endeavour, the institute will be renamed the Paul Albrechtsen Research Institute CancerCare Manitoba.

A $4 million set of five machines that analyze how cells interact inside of tumours, allowing doctors to personalize treatment to patients’ cancer circumstances, is the first of its kind in Canada.

CancerCare Manitoba president and CEO Dr. Sri Navaratnam said the machines have attracted a trio of prestigious scientists from outside the province who want to use the technology.

“There are other, more indirect benefits to our province, which we need. When we operate a world-class research institute, we attract the best and the brightest to work here,” she said. “They bring their colleagues, they bring their families. This brings new energy and new vitality to the province socially and economically.”

The donation also includes $2.5 million to increase CancerCare’s genomic sequencing research and $3.5 million for a previously-announced addition to the expansion of the Western Manitoba Cancer Centre in Brandon. The Paul Albrechtsen Centre for Hope will house care programming for cancer patients in the Westman region. Construction is set to begin in January and be completed by next summer.

The gift comes after a year of planning and a long-lasting philanthropic relationship between Albrechtsen and the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation, president and CEO Patti Smith said.

“It’s really kind of hard to find the right words to say, given the physical reaction that happens when you’re having a conversation with somebody that’s telling you, (you’re) going to receive this amount of money,” she said. “But I will tell you that I doubt in my lifetime there will ever be another day like it.”

Paul Albrechtsen was a Danish immigrant who came to Canada at the age of 24 in 1954, but showed a fiercely entrepreneurial spirit long before he arrived. As a child, during the German occupation of Denmark, he raised rabbits for meat. He settled in Virden and worked as a mechanic before getting into the hauling business. He began Paul’s Hauling Ltd., a small operation transporting water and oil with a single truck in 1957 and added seven more in just a few years. He never looked back, and the business now has branches in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

“Among my father’s skills, I think his greatest was his incredible foresight. He possessed a knack for predicting upcoming opportunities and maximized them to the full potential,” Scott Albrechtsen said. “He consistently found potential in individuals — opportunities, possibilities — and almost always developed them to their utmost advantage.”

He directed that energy into philanthropic projects in the last 30 years of his life. Other organizations to receive large donations were the Winnipeg Humane Society, Fort Whyte Centre, the Health Sciences Centre Foundation and Assiniboine Park. He always had a particular fascination with scientific and research endeavours, his son said.

“I remember long discussions at the dinner table about heart defibrillators, stem-cell research, cleft lip surgeries in India, over the years,” he said.

Some came after painful moments in the elder Albrechtsen’s life. The Reh-Fit Centre received $8 million in 2006; 11 years earlier, staff at the facility revived him when he collapsed while running on its track.

In 2008, his brother, Owen Albrechtsen, died of cancer.

“His passing had profound effects on my father and our whole family,” Scott said. “I believe this strongly spurred his interest in supporting and being involved in CancerCare, and fast-tracking the most effective treatments for people in Manitoba.”

He died July 7, 2019 at the age of 88.

Navaratnam said her hope is that a donation of this calibre brings more interest — and other donors — to the research CancerCare does.

“This extraordinary donation elevates our research institute to world-class stature where discovery is nurtured and supported and, as a result, patient care benefits,” she said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca