A Manitoba trucking industry leader who donated nearly $30 million to Winnipeg organizations and the single largest donor to both St. Boniface Hospital and Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre died on Sunday.
Paul Albrechtsen has donated $13.4 million to the Health Sciences Centre Foundation and $7 million to St. Boniface over the past three decades. Albrechtsen also gave $8 million to the Reh-Fit Centre in 2006.
Jonathon Lyon, the President and CEO of the Health Sciences Centre Foundation, says Albrechtsen epitomized the Canadian dream.
Albrechtsen, a mechanic by trade, immigrated to Canada from Denmark in 1954 with $50 in his pocket. He settled in Virden where he founded Paul’s Hauling Ltd. The small transportation company that hauled salt water and oil for the petroleum industry expanded over the years and now has branches in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.
Albrechtsen started giving money to the HSC Foundation in 1993. His donations have gone towards purchasing new interventional angiography equipment for stroke survivors.
A 2017 donation of $5 million enabled the hospital to buy a sophisticated stereotactic radiosurgery system that targets and destroys tumours while leaving behind healthy tissue.
Albrechtsen also donated $8 million to the Reh-Fit Centre in 2006 as a thank you after staff revived him after he collapsed while working out in the ’90s. He was running on the track when his heart started beating irregularly and he collapsed.
He was invested into the Order of Manitoba in 2016 and appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017.
In addition to his contributions to the HSC Foundation, Albrechtsen gave a $1.5-million gift to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in 2015.
