Barry Sherman joked he was probably going senile, agreeing to have his and his wife’s names emblazoned onto a health sciences research centre.

Wouldn’t it be unbecoming, to have their names up there?

The couple had donated $5 million to the York University project – but such massive donations weren’t anything new for them. In fact, they did it all the time.

He’d joked about their names going up on the research centre when it opened in 2010, in an interview with the North York Mirror.

Read more:

Barry Sherman was under investigation for breaking lobbying rules

Shermans ‘were people who cared about other people’

Veteran cop leading Sherman probe has track record of high-profile death investigations

In the wake of their deaths, the ideas that Honey and Barry Sherman held dearest can be gleaned from a trail of donations. The couple donated over $80 million, at the least, throughout their lives – often directed towards education, healthcare, politics and the Jewish community.

An exhaustive list of their charity work is near-impossible. One of their largest documented donations was $50 million to the United Jewish Appeal. But speaking to the Star, the group said they’ve yet to tally all the Sherman donations – a mix of capital, annual, and foundation gifts.

They were major benefactors of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, spokesperson Avital Borisovsky wrote in an email. But he declined to share the exact figure the Shermans donated.

In the world of healthcare, their donations are more quantifiable. They donated between $100,000 and $249,000 to the Sick Kids Foundation, annual reports show. They gave a whopping $10 million towards Mount Sinai Hospital over the years, and another $3 million to the University Health Network.

Through Apotex, they sent packages of direly-needed medications to the Mully Children’s Family, a children’s charity and orphanage based in Kenya. The last shipment in October was worth over $320,000.

“Last year’s team saved a 5-day-old baby which would have died without the team’s intervention and medication provided by our partners,” executive director Elizabeth Shelton told the Star.

They donated another $100,000 in HIV treatment drugs to the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee. Other aid donations include a cumulative total of between $2,500,000 and $4,999,999 for the United Way.

Crossing over from healthcare into education, they donated over $12 million to University of Toronto – mainly directed towards pharmacy students. They donated to York University for over two decades, giving to many initiatives on top of their $5 million for the Sherman Health Science Research Center.

In the political sphere, the Shermans and their company have funneled at least $20,533.88 into Canadian politics over the last 12 years.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Donations made under Barry’s name were purely to the Liberal party. He donated $3808.94 since 2005 – fragmented into donations for the York Centre and Humber River-Black Creek Federal Liberal Associations, the Liberal Party of Canada and an early 90’s campaign for Pierre Pettigrew. Pettigrew served as a Minister under both Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

Under Honey’s name and under Apotex, though, donations jumped the political spectrum. Honey gave $10,158.94 in donations to the Liberals and $3,600 to the Conservatives since 2006. Apotex Inc. has donated $2,566 to the Liberal party since 2004, and $400 to the Conservatives.

But although they gave generously throughout their lives, the Shermans were still worth billions. A recent estimate by Canadian Business magazine estimated Barry alone to be worth $4.7 billion.

So what happens to their estate?

“The first thing people are looking for is to see if they have a will,” Suzana Popovic-Montag, a managing partner at Hull & Hull LLP, who is not involved in the Shermans’ estate, told the Star. That establishes an executor – someone to deal with the body, the funeral, and eventually the division of the estate.

“They’re looking in the houses, safety deposit boxes,” Popovic-Montag listed. In some cases, individuals will tell their executors where the original copy is. “If people don’t know, then the family’s just really left looking.”

Rifling through the Sherman’s home, though, would be more complicated. That’s where the couple was found dead – and homicide investigators have taken over the case. Unless the family knows precisely where to look for the will, the estate process may be complicated or delayed by the investigation.

Once an executor is confirmed, they’ll gather all the assets, pay any liabilities, and distribute what’s left in accordance with the terms of the will. Terms can include setting up trusts or fulfilling promised gifts to charity.

Executors have little flexibility, Popovic-Montag explained. “It’s sort of your duty to uphold the terms of the will,” she said. That said, the terms of someone’s will can be challenged or have claims made against it in court.

With files from the North York Mirror

Read more about: