A month ago, the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation announced that it had become the recipient of the largest donation ever made to a hospital center in Quebec. A sum of 40 million dollars that the couple made up of two retired associates of the firm Ernst & Young, Michel Lanteigne and Diane Blais, decided to give during their lifetime to finance research into new treatments to fight against childhood cancer.
When I read this news on December 15, my first instinct was to immediately check who Michel Lanteigne and Diane Blais were, I was so surprised by the size of the donation as much as by the relative anonymity of the donors. .
Because it was not about people from the select and restricted club of billionaires or star managers with spectacular emoluments who make the headlines.
Michel Lanteigne and his wife Diane Blais both worked for 38 years at Ernst & Young, a global financial audit and consulting firm, as partners at EY Canada. Michel began his career in taxation in 1971 and Diane in consulting in 1973.
I may not have been a star in the business world, but I became a star at EY. I was the first francophone to become responsible for taxation for all of Canada.
Michel Lanteigne
“Me, at the beginning, I did consulting and financial communication [des états financiers d’entreprises], then I did IT implementation in major law firms, accountants and human resources. I was the director of the Montreal office and a member of the management committee of EY Quebec,” recalls Diane Blais.
The two have therefore had a long and successful career which propelled Michel Lanteigne to EY’s global headquarters in London, where he was for the last three years of his career as global head of tax.
He was asked to implement across the group a new staff development and training program in taxation that he had set up in Canada. He was a member of the North American and Global Executive Committees of EY, a firm with more than 365,000 employees worldwide.
Michel Lanteigne spent the week in London and returned to Quebec every weekend to spend time with his spouse Diane.
“We don’t come from wealthy families. During my studies, I sold shoes on rue Masson, that taught me a lot of things,” says Michel Lanteigne.
The two professionals therefore built up a significant heritage during their lives and they managed their investments with rigor, “à la EY”, specifies Diane Blais, which enabled them to make the donation of 40 million to the Fondation du CHU Sainte- Justine.
A well-planned gift
Michel Lanteigne lost his only son, Benoît, from a first union, at the age of 8, in 1989, killed by leukemia.
“Benoît was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 4. He was treated at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and was in remission for three years before relapsing. For a year, he followed traditional treatments and had to undergo a cold lumbar puncture every month because he could not stand painkillers, he did it with courage,” recalls Michel Lanteigne with sadness.
This ordeal changed the life of the tax expert, who then became involved in the Foundation of Stars and the Montreal Children’s Hospital, while Diane, his spouse, has always volunteered for organizations related to youth.
We decided to put all our assets together rather than having separate bequests. We wanted to have a more significant impact on research projects, to be able to hire researchers to develop new oncology projects.
Diane Blais
The Blais-Lanteigne couple embarked on a rigorous process and met with three institutions to present them with projects to which they could contribute financially.
“It was heartbreaking. We found that 40 million was not enough. We decided to fund the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center and its work on new treatments in oncology, which call on genomics, proteomics, stem cell genetics, so that researchers can develop treatments individual, less invasive”, specifies Michel Lanteigne.
The donation of 40 million from the Blais-Lanteigne couple should make it possible to obtain the first results in a horizon of three to five years, the donors hope. A competition to recruit international researchers will soon be launched.
35 years ago, the life expectancy of a child with leukemia was 50%. The rate is now 80%, but we want to increase it further and improve the quality of life of young patients.
“We also want our action to have a ripple effect. You have to plan your personal gifts. The day after our visit to the notary to finalize the process, our notary called us to tell us that he had changed his arrangements for a cause that was close to his heart,” says Michel Lanteigne with encouragement.