HSC foundation head named to Order of Canada

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This article was published 27/06/2024 (480 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If Tina Jones wants to celebrate being named to the Order of Canada, she has plenty of bubbly as the owner of Jones and Company Wine Merchants.

But her contributions to health care in Manitoba as longtime chairwoman of the Health Sciences Centre Foundation also helped earned her the prestigious award.

“How incredible!” said Jones, who was among 83 new appointments announced by Gov. Gen Mary Simon on Thursday morning.

“I am completely floored. I was so shocked. I never started volunteering or giving back to get an award like this. I guess when you’re doing good things, good things come to you.”

Jones said she “didn’t know anything” about what she was getting into when she was asked to join the board of the foundation more than a decade ago,

“I’ve been successful in business, and with it, I could give my time and not just resources.”

Jones and foundation have done well since she took over as chairwoman in June 2015 after joining the board in 2013.

The foundation has raised more than $168 million for health-care projects under her leadership, including $10.2 million for the Paul Albrechtsen Interventional Radiology Suites and $3.3 million for the Wilf Taillieu Thoracic Surgery Clinic and Endoscopy Unit.

There was also the purchase of the Manitoba Clinic and the $100 million-plus Operation Excellence campaign.

“She is so deserving of this recognition,” Jonathon Lyon, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer, said. “She is an incredibly powerful leader, and she has been a great supporter of our foundation. We are so proud of her.”

Jones, who was born in Virden, is the daughter of Louie Tolaini, who built TransX into the country’s largest privately held transportation company until it was sold to CN Rail in 2018.

Jones went to the University of Manitoba, then worked at her dad’s company for a few years before opening one of the first wine stores in 1999. She has since become a partner of the Rink Training Centre, dubbed a “fully integrated hockey training facility.”

Jones is married and has two grown children.

Besides the Order of Canada, Jones has received the Order of Manitoba and the University of Manitoba’s distinguished alumni award and was named a recipient of a Nellie McClung Manitoba 150 Women Trailblazer award.

Jones said the foundation is attracting and retaining doctors and specialists for Manitoba through equipment and programs the foundation funds.

“All of the provinces are looking for new doctors,” she said. “Why are people from Vancouver and Toronto coming to Winnipeg? It’s because of the innovation and vision of the HSC. When we can bring it here we help all of Manitoba.”

Jones, who said she will step down as chairwoman next year after a decade at the helm, looks forward to what her successor will accomplish.

“These are big dollar numbers, and the people after me will have the opportunity to continue,” she said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca