Advertisement
Proudly Canadian, obsessively Toronto. Subscribe to Toronto Life!
City

Reasons to Love Toronto Now: because Gary Slaight is our Warren Buffett

By Peter Saltsman
Copy link
(Image: CP Images)
(Image: CP Images)

Gary Slaight knows money. His father, Allan, founded his radio empire in 1971 with a single station and grew it into a juggernaut: eventually, he acquired the ailing Standard Broadcasting from Conrad Black. When Gary, soft-spoken and razor-sharp, started working at the company, he helped his father expand it even further. Then he did something most money-wise people never do. In 2007, with Allan long since retired and Gary in the driver’s seat, he sold Standard Radio and its 52 stations to Astral Media for $1.08 billion—and pulled a full-on Warren Buffett, establishing the Slaight Family Foundation and switching gears from making money to systematically giving it all away. He still looks the part of a media CEO, with a uniform of starched white shirts and tailored jackets, but he has the heart of a hippie, spending his days figuring out how to allocate his sizable funds. The foundation has given to organizations as diverse as Right to Play, Ryerson University and the National Ballet. In 2013, the family made a surprise donation of $50 million spread among five Toronto hospitals, earmarking money for doubling the size of St. Michael’s emergency department, Canada’s first full-body MRI machine at Toronto Western, scalpel-free brain surgery at Sunnybrook, and a youth research and treatment centre at CAMH.

NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY

Sign up for This City, our free newsletter about everything that matters right now in Toronto politics, sports, business, culture, society and more.

By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Big Stories

Dark Horse: Inside the fall of Eric Lamaze, Canada’s most famous equestrian
Deep Dives

Dark Horse: Inside the fall of Eric Lamaze, Canada’s most famous equestrian

Inside the Latest Issue

The February issue of Toronto Life features Scottie Barnes, the new face of the Raptors—and the team’s best chance of salvation. Plus, our obsessive coverage of everything that matters now in the city.