Michael DeGroote, who, in 1959 bought Laidlaw, a small trucking company and transformed it into a multinational trucking and waste-haulage giant, gave US$80 million to Ontario’s McMaster University's medical school on Wednesday.
The money will be divided into a $30-million capital fund for buildings, outfitting laboratories and hospital units, and a $50-million endowment fund.
McMaster president Peter George called DeGroote's donation an "historic gift" not only for the university and the Hamilton community but for all of Canada. The philanthropist's earlier gifts went to the university's business school, the McMaster Museum of Art, epilepsy research, literary criticism and the new student center.
DeGroote, a Hamilton native who now lives in Bermuda, sold Laidlaw in 1988.
