Why a retired public servant unveiled himself as Canada's largest mental health donor

Bruce McKean describes it as his coming out party. A year ago, the retired public servant stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself as the face behind hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to support mental health research in Ottawa, Toronto and elsewhere.

The occasion was an announcement at CAMH (The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) in Toronto recognizing “historic” support for mental health from McKean and his foundation, Waverley House.  His cumulative gift of more than $200 million to CAMH, the country’s biggest mental health hospital, is the largest donation of its kind in Canadian history.

His first big donation was in Ottawa — $6 million to establish the Emerging Researchers in Mental Health program at The Royal mental health hospital. The 2017 donation for the first-of-its-kind program in Canada was done anonymously. McKean says he and the foundation are currently in conversations with the Royal about what comes next after that successful program ends.

More recently, McKean and Waverley House donated $35 million to CHEO in Ottawa and SickKids in Toronto to support mental health research at the two pediatric hospitals. It was his first Ottawa donation in his own name. And there is more to come, he says.

The 79-year-old who lives simply and favours jeans and plaid shirts is a rare philanthropist — one whose sole focus is on mental health research.

After years of anonymous donations, McKean decided it was time to go public as someone with a story to tell about mental health. It is a common thread among many people he meets.

“The people I meet in leadership roles, support roles or donors related to mental health, you just scratch the surface and there is always a story … about my cousin, my mother, my brother. I truly believe there is not a family in Canada where there is not a story about alcohol, suicide, depression,” he said.

“For me, it was my brother-in-law who committed suicide, the husband of my favourite cousin who committed suicide, and my godson.”

McKean’s godson has struggled with mental illness for more than 30 years, beginning at age 16.

“He has been in and out of hospitals. I have been with him in and around court and probation, and hospital emergency rooms. I was part of his journey. I have seen it up close.”

McKean had previously donated quietly, at first through Ottawa’s Community Foundation and later through his own foundation named after Waverley Street, where he and his family lived for 30 years.

Their red brick house in Ottawa’s Golden Triangle is also where McKean’s life transformed from a senior public servant, former diplomat and, later, a mining executive, to that of a philanthropist with an “embarrassment of riches” to give away.

That was what McKean and his wife, Dale, decided to do when money they had invested in their future son-in-law’s startup, which would become Shopify, turned into more money than they would ever need.

“We wanted to not do stupid things with it and not fall into the trap that extreme wealth can bring. We said, ‘What are we going to do with it? Give it away.’”

McKean said he had been able to support his future son-in-law in his early days, indirectly, because he put his hand up to leave his government job when the Chrétien government slashed the public service by nearly 20 per cent in 1995.

At the time, McKean worked at National Resources Canada after an earlier career as a diplomat. His decision to leave surprised many of his colleagues, he said. But it led to another career — with the Nickel Development Institute — that lasted for 13 years. When the price of nickel nosedived, McKean was let go and headed into retirement with a “nice severance.” He used some of that money to support Tobi Lutke and others who were working on a startup and in need of cash.

Lutke, co-founder and CEO of the multibillion-dollar Ottawa-based Shopify, initially lived with the McKean family when he came to Canada from Germany after falling in love with McKean’s daughter, Fiona. His early work on a startup began in a spare room of the family home on Waverley Street, McKean said.

McKean said he supported Lutke and a handful of others in their initial work on what would become Shopify because Lutke was family and because McKean had the money thanks to the severance package. He also had faith that Lutke would be successful.

“Tobi is a very impressive individual. We knew the likelihood of success was more than zero.”

Initially, McKean was given pieces of paper acknowledging the monthly financial support.

“When the serious money came in, they said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and turned that paper into shares.”

McKean and his wife eventually sold all of those shares and became philanthropists.

Today, they are comfortable, but live simply. McKean and his wife have a two-bedroom condo in Toronto. His wife is now in care and McKean has dinner with her every evening.

“I am wealthy by retired public servant terms, absolutely, but all the money lies with the foundation. I am fully engaged in the decisions of the foundation, but it is not my money anymore.”

Part of McKean’s decision to go public was an effort  to help lessen some of the stigma around mental illness. He says he is optimistic that is already happening.

“I am convinced it is a problem of my generation. Young people get it. The stigma is never going to go away, but it is a shadow of what it was 50 years ago.”

McKean said he was proud to be a trailblazer as the biggest donor to mental health causes in Canada, but he would like to see other, larger foundations do more to support mental health. There is still some way to go, he said.

As part of his “coming out party” last year, CAMH announced that its new secure care and recovery building would be named for the Waverley Foundation in recognition of McKean’s extraordinary donor support. McKean said he later learned officials at CAMH were surprised he was willing to put the foundation’s name on the building.

“I have been told our willingness to put the Waverley House name on the secure care and recovery building — something that in other generations would be called the loony bin — is astounding to them. I am told this will be the only such secure care building in the mental health universe that has a name.”

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