DAVID AND BIRGITTA HARQUAIL
DAVID (BASc 1979)
David Harquail and Birgitta Sigfridsson-Harquail are accelerating world-leading research, education and patient care in the groundbreaking field of neuromodulation.
Among Canada’s most generous philanthropists, David Harquail and Birgitta Sigfridsson-Harquail have donated extensively to organizations and causes close to their hearts throughout their lives together. Along with their three adult children, they have created significant impact in health care, education and the arts, both in their local Toronto community and across Canada.
David Harquail is a graduate of the Mineral Engineering program at the University of Toronto. He went on to build a successful career as a leading executive in the mining industry and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Franco-Nevada Corporation, a gold-focused royalty company that he helped found. Birgitta Sigfridsson-Harquail, who is originally from Sweden, is a dentist who serves as a trustee of the Harquail family’s philanthropic foundation, The Midas Touch Foundation.
In 2023, the Harquails made a landmark $12 million gift jointly to the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Foundation to expand the Harquail Centre for Neuromodulation at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Bringing the combined commitment from the Harquails and Sunnybrook Foundation to more than $25 million, their remarkable gift is accelerating the Centre’s world-leading work in neuromodulation research, education and patient care, which strives to advance innovative, minimally invasive therapies for some of the most difficult-to-treat brain disorders.
The Harquails helped establish the centre in 2018, creating one of the world’s most comprehensive and interdisciplinary sites of neuromodulation science and care. One of the most promising areas of medical science today, neuromodulation uses innovative technologies to target pathways in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, ALS and other challenging brain disorders.
The couple’s most recent gift is establishing new professorships, supporting learners and advancing vital research projects at the Harquail Centre. Together with contributions from the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Foundation, their investment has also created an endowed chair in support of the Harquail Chair in Neuromodulation. Dr. Nir Lipsman, the Centre’s director, is the inaugural Chair.
With their remarkable new investment in this groundbreaking area of care and research, David Harquail and Birgitta Sigfridsson-Harquail are igniting extraordinary progress for the future of health care — creating an impact that will be felt across the world and for generations to come.