Peter E. Gilgan. A Giant in the Canadian Real Estate Industry
Overview
I was honoured to attend the recent T. Patrick Boyle Founder's Award Tribute Dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 hosted by the Fraser Institute, to honour Peter Gilgan. The reception was attended by 400 or 500 senior bankers, developers and politicians, all of whom were in attendance to pay tribute to Peter.
For those of you who may know Peter, Peter founded and is the CEO of Mattamy Homes, Canada's largest new home builder. Mattamy has built over 60,000 homes in over 150 communities across North America over the last 3 decades. Peter started as a C.A., building custom homes but saw a vision of creating affordable houses in very liveable communities and a mass production business in Ontario that resulted in Mattamy become the largest builder in Canada. Mattamy was awarded the Home Builder of the Year in 2011 and a further 3 times in the last 5 years as well as Home Builder of the Year in the Greater Toronto Area 5 times in the last decade.
But beyond Peter's home building achievements, Peter has become an outstanding philanthropist and business leader. Peter has donated over $150M to worthwhile charities in recent years, including $30M recently to St. Michael's Hospital.
Peter is an amazing example of giving back to the community and sharing the wealth.
At the dinner, Peter expressed his vision of cooperation between entrepreneurs and governments to create affordable housing, as well as echo-friendly housing. The need to continue the never ending battle to make houses more efficient and less impactful on the environment is key and Peter has been at the forefront of pushing for these changes and adopting them in his own business practices.
Peter has been awarded the award of Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal and Canada's Entrepreneur of the Year, all deservedly so. He is truly a giant amongst entrepreneurs, Canadian home builders and Canadians. I am proud to be part of an industry which produces community giants like Peter.
