GLOBE-Net, January 13, 2012 - A public memorial
service for philanthropist Milton Wong will be held next week,
according to his family. Milton, who died from pancreatic cancer in
the closing hours of 2011, was a tireless champion of social
justice, and a business leader who personified the very best in
corporate responsibility.
The son of an immigrant tailor in Vancouver's Chinatown, Milton
overcame racial prejudices that limited opportunities for so many
others to become one of Vancouver's most honoured financiers,
philanthropists and community leaders, left a legacy that is
written not only on the physical character of the city he loved,
but also in the moral a spiritual character of a new generation of
business leaders that he helped to educate.
His personal influence and financial support helped to shape SFU
Woodward's, Science World, the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental
Theatre in SFU's new School for the Contemporary Arts, the B.C.
Cancer Foundation, the Vancouver YWCA, and the Salvation
Army.
As a two-time Chancellor of Simon Fraser University and founder
and later chair of the Laurier Institution, a national non-profit
think-tank that promotes discussion of cultural diversity, Milton
demonstrated in word and deed all that is good about socially
responsible business.
Never afraid to take on the impossible, he turned personal
adversity into a challenge, social injustice into a cause, and
economic disadvantage into pathway for change.
He was among the very first business leaders in British Columbia
to call for the recognition of Aboriginal Rights, not only to turn
the page on generations of injustice, but also as a way to open the
door to economic and social opportunity for First Nations
youth.
He helped to create Vancouver's famed Dragon Boat Festival as a
way to bridge the cultural divides that we so much a part of the
society into which he was born, but which he helped change
forever.
He was deeply concerned about preserving the environment and
about ensuring that business success did not come at the expense of
our natural endowments.
He was a member of the Canadian Judicial Council. He was
co-chair of the BC Cancer Foundation Millennium Campaign and an
advisory board member with the Salvation Army. He served as a
director on the boards of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, the
Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program, the Pacific Salmon Endowment Fund
Society, Genome BC and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Foundation.
He was the recipient of the "Socially Responsible Entrepreneur
of the Year" award, chairman and CEO of the 4th World Chinese
Entrepreneurs Convention, and was named Entrepreneur of the Year by
Ernst & Young.
He managed billions of dollars as founder and chairman of M.K.
Wong and Associates, which he sold to HSBC Bank Canada, where he
also served as non-executive chairman.
But he never forgot his roots, and returned to Chinatown to
convert the building where his father and brothers laboured for
years into a home for the elderly.
To those of us who knew him well and who shared his passion for
change, his passing is a great loss. But in the example he set as
an extraordinary human being, he enriched us
all, and made us the better for having known him.
John D. Wiebe
President and CEO