For the Love of Humanity, with France Chrétien Desmarais
For National Philanthropy Day (Nov. 15), our podcast hosts spoke with France Chrétien Desmarais, Chair of Brain Canada Foundation, Executive Chair of renewable energy producer TES Canada H2, and recipient of the Order of Canada.
France Chrétien Desmarais tells MPNL hosts Lobna Mahdi and Danielle Vaillancourt that her life of service is close to that of her father’s, Canadian Prime Minster Jean Chrétien. A politician serves people, she says. Philanthropy is the same service, delivered differently. She points to the Greek roots of the word ‘philanthropist’: ‘philos’ means loving, and ‘anthropos’ means humanity. By that definition, she says she’s a philanthropist “big time.”
That idea carries into how she raised her family. France believes children learn generosity through their parents’ lives, not by being told what to care about. And giving doesn’t have to mean large sums. It can be a hot meal for someone, or simply being there for others. As she puts it, “As long as somebody does something for others, you’re in business.”
Much of this PhilanthroThink Podcast (S2,E7) turns on something that has frustrated her for decades: nonprofits working in silos. She remembers asking a bank CEO to support breast cancer work in Montreal in the 1990s. He told her he’d give far more if the cancer causes came together under one umbrella; donors get the same requests from many organizations, she explains. That’s part of why she values the approach of Brain Canada Foundation, which supports research of multiple conditions that affect the brain, from ALS and Alzheimer’s to dyslexia, because so much research is interconnected.
France took a similar approach to sport. When she founded the Canadian Olympic Foundation, sport sat near the bottom of donors’ priorities, behind healthcare, education and culture. She framed sport as nation-building. She points to Canada’s Olympic hockey gold in Vancouver, when the win felt like everyone’s medal, from coast to coast to coast.
And she sees her work in green hydrogen as part of the same goal. Building a new industry takes the same skills as advancing a cause, and for her, both come down to leaving a better world for the next generation.
Watch or listen to the episode YouTube or find it on the “PhilanthroThink Podcast” on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.