Arthur Mauro has donated $5-million to the University of Manitoba to fund research into human rights and conflict resolution.
The donor: Arthur Mauro
The gift: $5-million
The cause: The University of Manitoba
The reason: To fund research into human rights and conflict resolution.
When Arthur Mauro attended the University of Manitoba in the 1940s, he decided to run for student council president and got a swift rebuke. As a Catholic, he was told, he would never get elected. He won anyway.
Mr. Mauro saw plenty of discrimination in his student days and while growing up during the Great Depression in Port Arthur, Ont., which is now Thunder Bay.
"You saw the social injustice in society generally," he recalled from his home in Winnipeg. "People tended to look down on immigrants and there was a constant kind of difficulty between Catholics and non-Catholics. You knew the differences."
Mr. Mauro, 90, went on to a long career in law and business, serving as chief executive of Investors Group, and also as chancellor of the U of M. He maintained a keen interest in human-rights issues and in 2001 he donated $1-million to set up a Centre for Peace and Justice at the university. He's now contributed another $5-million to create a Chair in Human Rights and Social Justice and to fund peace-building initiatives around the world. His vision is for Winnipeg to become a new Geneva and establish a "Winnipeg Convention": "While the Geneva Convention outlines the rules of war, the Winnipeg Convention will establish the rules of peace and social justice."
Paul Waldie