Hotelier Sukhdev Toor came as immigrant and now gives back through foundation

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Sukhdev Toor, like many educated immigrants to Canada, could not find any opportunities in his field. He ended up founding a successful company and wanted to give back to his community, creating the Toor Family Foundation.

His daughter, Neelu Toor, director of the foundation, says one of the aims of the foundation is to help lessen the stigma of seeking help for mental health, including for the South Asian community.

The foundation also supports many other charitable initiatives, and continues to focus on mental-health initiatives. It recently donated $1 million to CAMH – The Center for Addiction and Mental Health to support young people. The donation came just prior to CAMH’s “No one left behind” campaign.

“The crisis has existed for a long time but was exacerbated and magnified by the pandemic,” says Dan O’Shaughnessy, founder of Toronto-based OSF Partners and director at the CAMH Foundation Board, the fundraising arm of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

“Mental health is not prioritized in the same way as physical health, as there is a lack of funding for mental health care and research, lack of understanding about mental illness and the brain, and high levels of stigma have all contributed to the growing crisis.

“As one of the world’s leading mental health hospitals, CAMH is working to address this global crisis, having recently launched the ‘No One Left Behind’ campaign, the world’s largest [a $500 million] fundraising campaign for hospital-based mental health research.”

Neelu Toor, Director of the Toor Family Foundation and Partner, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP legal firm

How did your family’s foundation come to be?

“My father, Sukhdev Toor, wanted to launch a foundation with a view to giving back to Canada on behalf of the family. It was important to him to ‘pay it forward,’ given he had the opportunity to grow and succeed here.

True to the quintessential immigrant story, my parents came to Canada in the 1980s as eager, educated and qualified individuals. Like so many others, however, my father – a civil engineer – could not find any opportunities in his field.

While studying for his MBA at the University of Waterloo, a series of different jobs led my father to hotels and founding a hotel company.

From the first property in St. Catharines, Ontario, Manga Hotels has grown to an organization with hotels, restaurants and residential properties across Canada and the United States.

During the last thirty years, my father has consistently given back to the communities in which Manga Hotels has operated. Through long-standing and active involvement in social and community projects, the Toor family has always volunteered with and provided sponsorship to various charitable groups and organizations. Our efforts have now been galvanized in the Toor Family Foundation.”

How have the foundation’s philanthropic initiatives evolved, and what is your role?

“The Toor Family Foundation was established to promote philanthropic endeavours focused on health and wellness. In particular, we believe in supporting our communities and vulnerable populations through capacity-building and advocacy.

In my role as a director of the Toor Family Foundation, I have worked with those at Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital and one of the world’s leading research centres, CAMH – The Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to find ways the Toor Family Foundation could help support their programs.

In particular, we wanted to help with the goal of providing comprehensive care to patients and their families.

With support from the Toor Family Foundation, CAMH is leading the implementation of a novel approach to helping adolescents and young adults overcome psychosis and bipolar disorder. Known as NAVIGATE, the program provides comprehensive care, including medication to reduce symptoms, a family education program, resiliency training to help patients identify and develop strengths, and counselling to help young people pursue their education and employment goals.”

What has the next generation’s role been in the family foundation?

“My father is a humble, nose-to-the-grindstone person, so my involvement with the Toor Family Foundation has been to support him to realize his goal of establishing the organization to support causes to effect real change.

In particular, mental health was a focus for my father because he truly supports the thesis that mental health is health.

This may seem obvious, but the notion of mental health being the same as physical health is not always recognized in my father’s generation or the South Asian community generally.

When we first started considering how to best realize our aim to promote health and wellness, we realized acknowledgement and supporting mental health initiatives would do more than just provide financial support but set an example in the South Asian community and hopefully inspire others to also give back to mental health causes.

Part of the Toor Family Foundation’s vision is to advocate and advance the conversations about mental health care in marginalized and systemically under-represented groups. One of the barriers to accessing mental health care and treatment, including for these groups, is the stigma that is still associated with doing so.

Through the work of the Toor Family Foundation, we are trying to destigmatize the dialogue around mental health with the hope that those who need help will seek it and that the broader community will be supportive.”

Do you recall a particularly key time in the foundation’s work?

“NAVIGATE is proven to help young patients engage in treatment longer, improve their quality of life and increase involvement in work and school. It is a game-changer in mental health care, reaching hundreds of youth to date. With support from the Toor Family Foundation, CAMH has created youth-focused learning and remote platforms for bipolar disorder that are utilized by young people, families and clinicians.

Even before the pandemic, NAVIGATE had been expanding its online resources, something that became of critical importance during the outbreak of COVID-19. The additional online resources that the program was able to provide to patients, caregivers and health-care providers meant that those in need continued to have access to the tools we were able to offer, especially in a time of crisis.

Our work was particularly timely given the sudden need to provide remote access to young patients and their families to family education programs, resiliency training and ongoing counselling.

Our goal of effecting real changes has certainly been realized.”

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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