Gail Asper

Gail Sheryl Asper (born 1960) is a Canadian heiress, philanthropist, and corporate lawyer.

Daughter of the media magnate Izzy Asper, she serves as the president and a trustee of the Asper Foundation.

Gail Sheryl Asper was born on 28 May 1960 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the entrepreneur and philanthropist Izzy Asper and Babs Asper.

In 1974, a year after the Yom Kippur War, Gail visited Jerusalem and its Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, which she said had a great impact on her.

Asper attended Kelvin High School, where she graduated in 1978.

She then attended the University of Manitoba, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1981 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1984.

She married Michael Paterson in 1984, with whom she had two sons.

In 1984, Asper articled with Halifax-based law firm Cox, Downie & Goodfellow.

The following year, she was called to the Nova Scotia bar, and subsequently practiced corporate and commercial law as an associate lawyer in Halifax with Goldberg & Thompson until 1989.

In 1989, she joined her father's firm, CanWest Global Communications Corp., as in-house counsel and later as corporate secretary.

In 1990, she was called to the Manitoba bar.

In 2002, she became President of the Asper Foundation, a private charitable foundation established by her parents.

Following the death of her father in 2003, Asper, her siblings, and the Asper Foundation adopted responsibility for development of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which her father had only announced to the public months prior.

At this time, then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had already committed $100 million towards the project with Israel Asper.

To go forward with developing the museum in 2004, Gail Asper formed an advisory council of such people as former Prime Ministers Chrétien and Brian Mulroney, Scotiabank CEO Rick Waugh, actor Ben Kingsley, and journalist Michaëlle Jean (later the Governor General of Canada), among others.

On 26 August 2008, the Harper government appointed Asper to the board of trustees of the CMHR.

She was associated with the Liberal Party of Canada and the Manitoba Liberal Party.

In 2021 she contributed $3,000 to the campaign of Manitoba conservative Heather Stefanson.

On 26 August 2008, Asper was appointed to the board of trustees of the CMHR by the Stephen Harper government.

She is known for bringing to Winnipeg, Manitoba, the $351-million Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR)—the first national museum in Canada to be established outside of the capital region, and whose image now adorns Canada's $10 bill as of 2018.

The Asper Foundation itself is the private charitable organization that spearheaded the establishment of the CMHR.

In 2018, Asper, along with her family and husband Michael Paterson, announced that they would match $1,000,000 of donations to IISD Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA), an internationally unique freshwater laboratory in northwestern Ontario where Paterson worked as a research scientist.

Also that year, Manitoba Opera created The Gail Asper Award to honour "exemplary leadership of those outstanding individuals who translate vision into reality and in doing so, make the world a better place."

The 2019 Canadian film Stand! credited Asper as an executive producer, marking her first credit on a motion picture.

Asper's work has included championing the Jewish-Canadian community and supporting the state of Israel.

She, with the Asper Foundation, established a $400-million Jewish history museum in Tel Aviv, the World's Jewish Museum, intended to celebrate Jewish history and success as opposed to entirely focusing on the Holocaust.

In 2021, Asper opposed a city initiative to limit vehicular traffic on Winnipeg's Wellington Crescent in favour of pedestrians and cyclists, citing a personal enjoyment of car rides through the wealthy neighbourhood.

Asper serves and has served on the boards of numerous corporate and not-for-profit groups.

Asper has received various community service and humanitarian awards: