Strong ties to west-end Toronto and love for his family spurred a well-known Canadian businessman to give one of the largest donations St. Joseph’s Health Centre has ever received.

Peter Gilgan, founder and CEO of Mattamy Homes, a residential homebuilding company, provided the community hospital with $10 million.

“This is because of you,” said Gilgan at a conference at St. Joseph’s, referring to his 95-year-old mother, who was in attendance. “The circle of life continues,” he added.

His donation will be added to the Promise Campaign, a health-care initiative established to expedite the delivery and quality of services.

The campaign has a target of $70 million — it sits at about $60 million after Gilgan’s donation, said its co-chair.

Gilgan has connections to the west-end: he and his six siblings were born at St. Joseph’s and grew up in Parkdale. He is a heavyweight philanthropist, having contributed funds to multiple health facilities in the city over the years — in 2014, for example, he gave $30 million to St. Michael’s Hospital to go toward a new facility for the critically ill. In 2011, Gilgan donated $15 million toward Ryerson University’s athletic centre in the former Maple Leaf Gardens.

“It’s transformative for us,” said Maria Dyck, president and CEO of the St. Joseph’s Health Centre Foundation. “We serve about a half a million people here in Toronto’s west end.”

These funds are earmarked for reconfiguring outdated buildings and advancing facilities, said Dyck — the emergency department, for instance. Part of the hospital will be renamed the Gilgan Family wing.

“We have one of the busiest emergency departments in the city,” she said. “We have over 100,000 people visit every year.”

And the department is operating beyond capacity — it can accommodate about 65,000 people per year, said Dyck. The last time it underwent an update was over 10 years ago.

“The place really feels it. We still aren’t configured as well as we’d like to be to meet the volume, so this gift will help with that, along with outpatient care. We’ve been waiting for a long time for this.”

Mayor John Tory lauded the hospital and Gilgan’s gift.

“St. Joe’s always has been one of those great places that’s never lost its way as a community hospital,” he said. “There are few, if any, who have the depth and scale of commitment to philanthropy and community building than has been shown by everything that Peter Gilgan and his family have done,” he said.

CIBC CEO and president Victor Dodig, who co-chairs the Promise Campaign with Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, called the hospital the “quiet, unsung hero of health care.”

Gilgan has the potential to lead by example, he added.

“People get encouraged to give as well because they see the social return that comes from investing in the community, the benefit, and Peter Gilgan’s a leading light, in that regard.”

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Generous givers

Other notable donations to Toronto and GTA hospitals:

$130 million: Rogers family to the Hospital for Sick Children, University Health Network and the University of Toronto, 2014

$50 million: Myron and Berna Garron to Toronto East General Hospital (main campus now renamed Michael Garron Hospital), 2015

$50 million: Slaight Family Foundation to the University Health Network, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, St. Michael’s Hospital, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Mount Sinai Hospital, 2013

$50 million: Joseph and Wolf Lebovic to Mount Sinai Hospital, 2006

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$40 million: Peter Gilgan to the Hospital for Sick Children, 2014

$37.5 million: Linda Campbell, Gaye Farncombe and Susan Grange to Princess Margaret Hospital, 2008

$37 million: Peter Munk to Toronto General Hospital, 2006

$35 million: Larry and Judy Tanenbaum to Mount Sinai Hospital, 2013

$30 million: Peter Gilgan to St Michael’s Hospital, 2014

$30 million: Myron and Berna Garron to the Hospital for Sick Children, 2010

$30 million: Arthur and Sonia Labatt to the Hospital for Sick Children, 2007

$25 million: Li Ka-shing to St Michael’s Hospital, 2011

$25 million: Larry Tanenbaum to Mount Sinai Hospital, 2006

$25 million: Li Ka-shing (Canada) Foundation to St. Michael’s Hospital, 2005

$25 million: Audrey Campbell and daughters (Thomson family) to Institute for Breast Cancer Research at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital, 2004

$20 million: CI Financial to Orthopaedic & Arthritic Institute at Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre, 2005

$15 million: Muzzo and de Gasperis families to the Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital, 2017

$5 million: Eugene Melnyk, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, 2005