These are the 50 richest people in Canada

From 2020 to 2021, the collected wealth of the 47 Canadians who were billionaires climbed by $78 billion from the year before, for a total of $270 billion. And by 2022, there were 58 of them, worth $246 billion collectively.

Many of these billionaires do not come from money. Numerous have started their own drugstores, money management firms, or real estate companies. Others have started more modern companies, such as Uber and Shopify, while others have made their money from oil and gas or steel.

But as the rich have gotten richer, the inequality gap in Canada has grown. In 2022's second quarter, the gap in wealth between the richest 20% of households and the poorest 20% increased. And poor and middle-income Canadians have been hit harder by recent economic turmoil than their wealthier compatriots.

Stacker compiled a list of the top 50 Canadian billionaires and ranked them by net worth, based on Forbes real-time data from Nov. 22, 2022. The leading billionaires in Canada are all men. Some of them were born in Canada, while others have come from outside the country.

Read on to see how Canada's billionaires stack up to one another.

You may also like: This is what really happens to retail food waste

- Net worth: $1.5 billion (#1,813 richest in the world)

- Age: 79

- Source of wealth: Drugstores

Brandt Louie's grandfather Hok Yat Louie moved to Canada from China and gradually saved up enough money to open a small general store in Vancouver, British Columbia's Chinatown in 1903. That small store would become the basis of the family's business, which now includes IGA supermarkets and London Drugs. Today, Louie heads the H.Y. Louie Co. Ltd., one of the largest private companies in British Columbia, with 10,000 employees. He also operates two charities with wide-ranging operations: the Tong and Geraldine Louie Family Foundation and the London Drugs Foundation.

- Net worth: $1.5 billion (#1,792 richest in the world)

- Age: 74

- Source of wealth: Convenience stores

Richard Fortin co-founded a Canadian convenience store, Couche-Tard, which is now a chain that owns another chain, Circle K. In 2019, Couche-Tard had more than 1,400 stores with revenue above $59 billion. In addition to these stores, Fortin owns stakes in Transcontinental, a Canadian publishing and packaging company, and the National Bank of Canada.

- Net worth: $1.5 billion (#1,788 richest in the world)

- Age: 61

- Source of wealth: Media

Pierre Karl Péladeau's father founded the communications company Quebecor Inc. in 1965, and from a young age, Péladeau was interested in becoming more involved in the company. He eventually took over Quebecor subsidiaries in 1985, where he supervised several acquisitions. In 2000, while he was president and CEO of Quebecor, he led the company's major acquisitions of TVA and Videotron World. In 2015, Péladeau was elected to Quebec's National Assembly, and he served as the leader of the official opposition in the National Assembly until 2016.

- Net worth: $1.6 billion (#1,781 richest in the world)

- Age: 97

- Source of wealth: Money management

Born in Berlin in 1925, Stephen Jarislowsky moved to the United States in 1941 to attend prep school in Asheville, North Carolina. He served in U.S. counterintelligence after World War II and earned his MBA at Harvard before starting Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. in 1955 in Montreal. The company became one of the largest and most successful investment management firms in Canada, and Jarislowsky remains on the company's board of directors. He is also the co-founder and director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance.

- Net worth: $1.6 billion (#1,759 richest in the world)

- Age: 79

- Source of wealth: Telecom

Terry Matthews has shepherded about 120 startups into successful companies, including Mitel Networks Corp., which he founded in 1972 to import electric lawn mowers, but eventually shifted gears and began selling dial pads for telephones. He used the money he made when British Telecom bought Mitel to found the telecom company Newbridge Networks, and in 2016 founded Excalibur Steel UK Ltd. Matthews is originally from Wales and today chairs the board of the Swansea Bay City Region.

You may also like: The industries where workers are quitting their jobs in droves

- Net worth: $1.6 billion (#1,731 richest in the world)

- Age: 71

- Source of wealth: Mutual funds

Michael Lee-Chin was born in Jamaica in 1951 but moved to Canada in 1970 to attend McMaster University, where he studied civil engineering and first became interested in the mutual fund industry. In 1987, he bought AIC Ltd. and took the company from less than $1 million to more than $10 billion in assets at the peak of the company's business. Lee-Chin sold AIC's retail mutual fund business to Manulife Financial Corp. in 2009 but is currently the executive chairman and CEO at Portland Investment Counsel Inc.

- Net worth: $1.7 billion (#1,680 richest in the world)

- Age: 73

- Source of wealth: Real estate

Born and raised in India, Bill Malhotra moved to Canada in 1971 when he was 22 years old. Before getting into real estate, he worked as a civil engineer, including a post as Ottawa's chief structural engineer between 1977 and 1986. After resigning from this post, he founded his real estate company, Claridge Homes. Since its founding in 1986, this company has built over 14,000 homes.

- Net worth: $1.7 billion (#1,667 richest in the world)

- Age: 90

- Source of wealth: Insurance, investments

Hal Jackman was the chairman of the board of National Trust Co. and the Empire Life Insurance Co., as well as several other large Canadian companies, but he is perhaps most well-known for serving as the lieutenant governor of Ontario from 1991 through 1997. As lieutenant governor, Jackman advocated for support for the arts, history, and Canadian unity. Jackman was named to the Order of Ontario in 1988; in 2000, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

- Net worth: $1.7 billion (#1,651 richest in the world)

- Age: 60

- Source of wealth: Steel

Alan Zekelman has made his wealth because of his partial ownership of the steel business Zekelman Industries with his brothers Clayton and Barry Zekelman. Zekelman Industries is one of the biggest steel tube and pipe makers in North America and has annual revenue of $5 billion.

- Net worth: $1.7 billion (#1,632 richest in the world)

- Age: 77

- Source of wealth: Electronics components

Born in Montreal in 1943, Robert G. Miller worked as a DJ and then for an electronics supplier before starting his electronics components company, Future Electronics, in 1968. When starting the company, he had a partner, Eli Manis. In 1976, Future Electronics bought Manis out for $500,000. Now, Future Electronics has an approximate revenue of $5 billion and is one of the world's top five distributors of electronics components.

You may also like: States with the most farmland

- Net worth: $1.7 billion (#1,627 richest in the world)

- Age: 65

- Source of wealth: Real estate finance

Jay Hennick started his business career early, in 1972, as a teenager, using a $1,000 loan from his father to start a small commercial swimming pool management company. In 1989, Hennick turned that business into FirstService, a real estate services company. In 2010, he merged FirstService with Collier, the real estate investment firm where he is the largest shareholder and CEO. For the 2021 fiscal year, the revenue of Colliers International Group Inc. was greater than $4 billion.

- Net worth: $2.0 billion (#1,435 richest in the world)

- Age: 59

- Source of wealth: Cosmetics

Guo Zhenyu is the chairman and president of Yunnan Botannee Bio-Technology Group Co. Ltd., which manufactures and sells cosmetics and skin care products. This company is headquartered in China. Though Guo resides in Kunming, China, he has Canadian citizenship.

- Net worth: $2.0 billion (#1,402 richest in the world)

- Age: 37

- Source of wealth: Investments

Ryan Cohen founded Chewy, the online pet supplies shop, in 2011. Six years later, Cohen sold Chewy for $3.35 billion to Petsmart—the biggest e-commerce deal ever made at the time. In late 2020, Cohen bought 13% of GameStop while simultaneously urging that the company's management restructure the company. In January 2021, he became a member of GameStop's board—and after a surge in the share price that was coordinated by traders on Reddit, Cohen's fortune increased even more.

- Net worth: $2.1 billion (#1,392 richest in the world)

- Age: 53

- Source of wealth: Steel

Like his brother Alan Zekelman, Clayton Zekelman made his wealth because of Zekelman Industries, their family steel business. Clayton splits company ownership with his brothers, Barry and Alan Zekelman. Additionally, Clayton owns two Ontario telecom companies.

- Net worth: $2.1 billion (#1,389 richest in the world)

- Age: 48

- Source of wealth: Chemicals

Zhang Ning is the chairman and founder of the Red Avenue New Materials Group Co Ltd, a company in the materials industry that makes chemical products. Even though Zhang lives in the city of Shanghai, he has Canadian citizenship. In addition to his career, his education includes a global financial management Ph.D. he earned at Arizona State University.

You may also like: The cost of gasoline the year you started driving

- Net worth: $2.1 billion (#1,353 richest in the world)

- Age: 63

- Source of wealth: Real estate

Chulong Huang is a Chinese entrepreneur and Canadian citizen who is the chair of the company Galaxy Holding Group, which he founded in 1988. This is an umbrella company that covers various Chinese businesses in several sectors, including design, energy, hotels, property management, shopping centers, real estate development, and finance and investment. Huang lives in Shenzhen, China.

- Net worth: $2.4 billion (#1,230 richest in the world)

- Age: 66

- Source of wealth: Software

At the start of his career, Mark Leonard worked in venture capitalism. Then, in 1995, he founded Constellation Software Inc., where he is now president. The company acquires software companies, after which it manages and builds them. In 2018, CSI acquired eight tech companies; a year later, it acquired almost 100 more.

- Net worth: $2.4 billion (#1,209 richest in the world)

- Age: 73

- Source of wealth: Information technology

Born in 1949, Serge Godin was 26 when he founded CGI Inc. with just $5,000 in his savings account. During the next decade, he grew the firm from two employees to 225, then to 1,200 after 20 years. Five decades after its founding, the company is the world's fifth-largest full-service information tech and business process services company. In 2000, Godin started a family foundation to help reduce poverty, further education, and better the health of children and teens.

- Net worth: $2.5 billion (#1,188 richest in the world)

- Age: 91

- Source of wealth: Liquor

Montreal-born and raised Charles Bronfman spent a 50-year career at the Seagram Company Ltd. and was the founding chairman and principal owner of the Montreal Expos, the first Major League Baseball team outside the United States. Particularly well-known for his philanthropic work, in 1985, Bronfman and his wife founded the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, which aims to educate young people about their cultural heritage and identity.

- Net worth: $2.5 billion (#1,147 richest in the world)

- Age: 71

- Source of wealth: Finance and investments

Stephen Smith is the president and CEO of First National Financial LP, Canada's largest nonbank mortgage lender, and the co-owner of Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance Co., which is Canada's third-largest mortgage insurance provider. After Smith was fired from his job in 1980, he began investing in real estate and building houses, but the tough economy led him to declare personal bankruptcy in 1984. Just four years later, Smith formed First National Financial with his business partner Moray Tawse.

You may also like: Iconic car debuts from the year you were born

- Net worth: $2.6 billion (#1,122 richest in the world)

- Age: 81

- Source of wealth: Real estate, private equity

Jack Cockwell was born in South Africa, and at 27, he was hired to manage the inheritance of a few of the Bronfman brothers, who belong to a wealthy Canadian American family. In his role, Cockwell spearheaded numerous acquisitions on behalf of Edper Investments, the Bronfmans' company, and eventually built a real estate and financial services firm that would become Brookfield Asset Management. The company has a $250 billion portfolio, and Cockwell remains a director at Brookfield today.

- Net worth: $2.6 billion (#1,118 richest in the world)

- Age: 44

- Source of wealth: Uber

Garrett Camp is the co-founder of successful tech ventures Uber Technologies Inc. and StumbleUpon and continues to serve as the chairman of both companies. Camp has also launched several other startup companies, including Expa, which he started in 2013 as a global network of entrepreneurs that supports new business ventures. Camp also started Eco, which began as a cryptocurrency project but now handles personal finance and investments.

- Net worth: $2.7 billion (#1,056 richest in the world)

- Age: 62

- Source of wealth: Oil & gas

At 28, N. Murray Edwards started a merchant bank with some of his colleagues, each contributing $100,000 toward the project. They looked for investments in oil and gas, and eventually, Edwards became a successful entrepreneur with investments beyond oil and gas, including mining, aerospace, and ski resorts. He also became a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames. Today, his businesses employ more than 25,000 people.

- Net worth: $2.7 billion (#1,054 richest in the world)

- Age: 71

- Source of wealth: Homebuilding

Peter Gilgan is the president and CEO of Mattamy Homes, a Canadian company that is the largest privately held home builder in North America. Mattamy Homes has 1,700 employees, whom Gilgan says he makes an effort to connect with regularly. Gilgan has contributed more than $175 million to charitable causes, including the largest-ever gift of $40 million to SickKids, a Canadian pediatric hospital.

- Net worth: $2.8 billion (#1,040 richest in the world)

- Age: 61

- Source of wealth: Real estate

Mitchell Goldhar has been involved in residential and commercial real estate development for 30 years and helped bring Walmart to Canada in 1994. Since then, he has overseen the development of 265 Canadian shopping centers, including 175 Walmart stores. Goldhar is currently the executive chairman of the board of SmartCentres, a real estate investment trust; owner of the Penguin Group of companies; and sits on the advisory board of the Canadian Sports Concussion Project.

You may also like: Youngest billionaires in America

- Net worth: $2.8 billion (#1,011 richest in the world)

- Age: 63

- Source of wealth: Fashion investments

Lawrence Stroll was introduced to the world of fashion investments at a young age when his father, Leo Strulovitch, ushered the Polo Ralph Lauren and Pierre Cardin brands to Canada. When Stroll was older, he helped expand the Ralph Lauren brand into Europe. Stroll has also invested in Tommy Hilfiger and bought a majority stake in Michael Kors in 2009. In January 2020, Stroll bought a majority stake in Aston Martin and joined the company's board as executive chairman. Though he resides in Switzerland, Stroll also has homes in Quebec and London and on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

- Net worth: $2.9 billion (#1,003 richest in the world)

- Age: 65

- Source of wealth: Convenience stores

Jacques D'Amours co-founded Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which operates Canadian convenience stores. He started the company in 1980 and held various jobs throughout his 34-year career—manager of technical services, vice president of sales, vice president of administration and operations—before retiring in 2014. As of 2019, Couche-Tard operated 12,575 stores worldwide.

- Net worth: $2.9 billion (#993 richest in the world)

- Age: 57

- Source of wealth: Consumer goods

Pan Dong, along with her husband, Luo Qiuping, started Blue Moon Group, a Chinese company that mostly sold liquid hand soap early on in its history. However, when Pan and Luo developed a liquid laundry detergent—which stood out in the market because most multinational companies sold only powdered detergent in China—they got in touch with Zhang Lei, an important Chinese investor. He believed in their mission to sell liquid laundry detergent, invested in their company, and now, Blue Moon Group is to China what Procter & Gamble is to the U.S. Blue Moon Group designs, makes, and sells various products, including detergents, cleaning products, and personal hygiene products. Her connections to Canada are unclear.

- Net worth: $3.1 billion (#914 richest in the world)

- Age: 81

- Source of wealth: Hotels

Bob Gaglardi launched Northland Properties in 1963 with a $5,000 loan and opened the Sandman Inn hotel in British Columbia in 1967. Following the success of that hotel, Gaglardi opened other Sandman Inns throughout Canada and began expanding into the real estate and restaurant businesses as well. In 2011, Gaglardi and his son purchased the Dallas Stars hockey team for $240 million.

- Net worth: $3.2 billion (#890 richest in the world)

- Age: 95

- Source of wealth: Drugstores

In 1969, Jean Coutu opened the first Coutu drugstore, where he offered customers extended hours, high-quality customer service, and low prices. In 2017, Coutu sold the company to Metro, a European supermarket giant, for $4.5 billion. Before selling his company, Coutu was its chief executive between 1969 and 2002 and again between 2005 and 2007.

You may also like: 25 richest families in America

- Net worth: $3.3 billion (#841 richest in the world)

- Age: 55

- Source of wealth: Steel

Like his brothers Clayton and Alan Zekelman, Barry Zekelman came into wealth because of Zekelman Industries, their family steel business. Barry shares company ownership with his brothers, Alan and Clayton Zekelman. Currently, Barry is the CEO of the company.

- Net worth: $3.5 billion (#806 richest in the world)

- Age: 71

- Source of wealth: Venture capital

Leonid Boguslavsky is the chairman and CEO of RTP Global, a venture capital firm formerly known as ru-Net Ltd., which focuses on outsourcing, media, automation, and information technology. RTP Global has invested in nearly 100 companies, five of which have become multibillion-dollar public companies: Datadog, Delivery Hero, EPAM, RingCentral, and Yandex.

- Net worth: $3.5 billion (#799 richest in the world)

- Age: 42

- Source of wealth: E-commerce

Tobias "Tobi" Lutke started selling snowboards online after settling down with his wife in the Canadian city of Ottawa. Brilliant at coding, he created e-commerce software to sell them himself. Realizing this was a great product, he decided in 2006 to start selling the software itself, branded Shopify. Since the company's founding, more than half a million online merchants have used it.

- Net worth: $3.9 billion (#712 richest in the world)

- Age: 94

- Source of wealth: Diversified

James Irving is the owner of J.D. Irving Ltd., a sprawling business with more than two dozen companies involved in retail, transportation, and frozen foods, among many others. His family's wealth preceded him by two generations: His father grew the family's assets even more by expanding into oil operations with Irving Oil Ltd. That company is run by his brother Arthur Irving, but the two reportedly don't speak. Irving's timber and forestry operation has planted more than a billion trees since 1957, and the company holds the world record for the most trees planted in an hour: 53,000.

- Net worth: $3.9 billion (#706 richest in the world)

- Age: 67

- Source of wealth: Real estate

Carlo Fidani has run the Toronto-based real estate company Orlando Corp. since 2000, when his father died. Fidani's grandfather founded it in 1948 as Fidani and Sons. Today, Orlando Corp. manages about 44 million square feet of business office, commercial and industrial spaces. Fidani supports health services and regularly donates to the Carlo Fidani Peel Regional Cancer Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.

You may also like: Retirement scams to watch out for

- Net worth: $4.0 billion (#683 richest in the world)

- Age: 42

- Source of wealth: Software

Alex Shevchenko is a Ukrainian entrepreneur who co-founded the grammar-checking tool Grammarly and fellow Ukrainian entrepreneurs Dmytro Lider and Max Lytvyn. Shevchenko, who lives in Canada, is also the company's product leader. The company claims that it has 30 million users a day.

- Net worth: $4.0 billion (#683 richest in the world)

- Age: 42

- Source of wealth: Software

Another co-founder of Grammarly, Max Lytvyn is also the company's head of revenue. The co-founders had built a plagiarism-detection company before deciding to help students with spelling and grammar. The service is now used across 500,000 websites and applications.

- Net worth: $4.2 billion (#642 richest in the world)

- Age: 61

- Source of wealth: Pharmacies

Daryl Katz, whose father owned a drugstore, began building his own wealth in the pharmaceutical industry when he bought the Canadian rights to the American drugstore Medicine Shoppe in 1991. Later, he bought out the Canadian chain Rexall, bringing those stores to the U.S. market before deciding to abandon the drugstore business entirely and focus on real estate. His company, Katz Group, is currently co-developing a $2 billion complex in his hometown of Edmonton, where Katz also owns the Oilers, the city's National Hockey League team.

- Net worth: $4.5 billion (#597 richest in the world)

- Age: 57

- Source of wealth: Money management

In 2002, Bruce Flatt was named CEO of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. at age 37 and helped the company to transform into one of Canada's largest property and infrastructure managers. Over the past two decades, Flatt has sat on the board of more than 20 companies. Despite his success, he's remained grounded, reportedly not having his own office and regularly eating lunch with new company hires.

- Net worth: $4.9 billion (#536 richest in the world)

- Age: 85

- Source of wealth: Cheese

Emanuele (Lino) Saputo made his money from Saputo Inc., a cheese-making business. According to its origin story, the firm was founded in the early 1950s by an Italian immigrant family, the Saputos. Since then, Saputo Inc. has grown into one of the world's largest dairy processors, selling milk, cheese, and other dairy products in more than 60 countries. Saputo's annual revenue was greater than $14 billion as of September 2021.

You may also like: States where food stamps are used the most

- Net worth: $4.9 billion (#532 richest in the world)

- Age: 92

- Source of wealth: Oil

Arthur Irving joined his family's company of Irving Oil Ltd. in 1951 and became president of the company in 1972. Although he remains the chairman of Irving Oil, he also has a strong interest in education and the environment. From 1996 to 2010, Irving served as the chancellor of Acadia University, and in 2002, he started the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre and the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens on the university's campus in collaboration with his brothers.

- Net worth: $5.3 billion (#466 richest in the world)

- Age: 48

- Source of wealth: Online gambling

Mark Scheinberg was born in Israel but moved to a suburb of Toronto when he was a teenager. At 28, Scheinberg co-founded PokerStars with his father, Isai, in 2001. The company was the biggest online poker company when the Scheinbergs eventually sold it in 2014. Scheinberg earned more than $3 billion from the sale and used some of that money to restore historic buildings in Madrid for residential and commercial purposes.

- Net worth: $5.8 billion (#430 richest in the world)

- Age: 65

- Source of wealth: Lululemon

Chip Wilson is the founder of companies Westbeach Snowboard and Lululemon Athletica. He has been considered one of the leaders in the "athleisure" industry, which he was inspired to get into after he attended his first yoga class at 42. Although he stepped down from the board of Lululemon in 2015, he remains the company's fourth-largest shareholder. Lululemon has 140 stores outside the United States.

- Net worth: $5.9 billion (#423 richest in the world)

- Age: 73

- Source of wealth: Convenience stores

Alain Bouchard was born in 1949, one of six children, and despite family hardships in his youth, he went on to be part of the executive team that founded Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in 1980. He eventually served as its president and CEO until 2014. While at the helm of Couche-Tard, it became Canada's leading convenience store chain and the largest independent convenience store operator in the United States. In 2012, Bouchard was named Canada's outstanding CEO of the year. He and his wife have a child with an intellectual disability, which led them to fund related research at McGill University.

- Net worth: $8.0 billion (#247 richest in the world)

- Age: 58

- Source of wealth: E-commerce

Joseph Tsai is a co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a Chinese-based internet company, and has spent more than 20 years with the business, serving as CFO and executive vice chairman of the company's board. Tsai owns the Brooklyn Nets; the New York Liberty, a Women's National Basketball Association team; and the San Diego Seals, a professional indoor lacrosse team. He also is the chairman of J Tsai Sports, which has invested in several sports media and technology companies.

You may also like: States with the largest unionized workforces

- Net worth: $9.5 billion (#193 richest in the world)

- Age: 71

- Source of wealth: Google

David Cheriton was among the first angel investors in Google LLC, where he mentored Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and is the founder and CEO of Apstra, a company that automates the design and operations of data centers. Cheriton also invested in VMWare Inc. and Arista Networks and founded Granite Systems (acquired by Cisco Systems in 1996) and Kealia Inc. (acquired by Sun Microsystems Inc. in 2004). Cheriton is a professor emeritus of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University.

- Net worth: $9.5 billion (#191 richest in the world)

- Age: 72

- Source of wealth: Alcoholic beverages

You may not know Anthony von Mandl, but you're likely familiar with two of his successful alcoholic beverages—Mike's Hard Lemonade and White Claw. Although von Mandl has been known among the elite for his well-established Canadian wineries, he made his money from Mike's Hard Lemonade, which launched in Canada in 1996. His company, Mark Anthony Group, sold the Canadian rights to the beverage for $350 million in 2015, but it still has the right to sell the drinks in the United States, where the market is much bigger. The success of White Claw turned Mark Anthony Group into the fourth-largest beer company in the United States in 2019.

- Net worth: $11.2 billion (#158 richest in the world)

- Age: 94

- Source of wealth: Diversified

Jim Pattison is the founder of the Jim Pattison Group, which is a large business conglomerate that has interests in a variety of sectors, including grocery store chains and the automotive industry. The business is the second-largest privately held company in Canada, with 45,000 employees and $10 billion in revenue in 2017. Pattison operates the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital Foundation and, in 2018, donated more than $100 million to hospitals in Vancouver and in his birthplace of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

- Net worth: $17.4 billion (#90 richest in the world)

- Age: 45

- Source of wealth: Cryptocurrency exchange

Changpeng Zhao, who goes by "CZ," spent his teen and young adult years in Canada and is a Canadian citizen. In 2017, he founded Binance, which became the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. He is a major shareholder and the company's CEO. The exchange's high daily trading volume is a big earner, and Zhao also holds a fortune's worth of cryptocurrency.

- Net worth: $52.9 billion (#23 richest in the world)

- Age: 65

- Source of wealth: Media

The wealth of David Thomson, and that of his family, goes back to the financial success of his grandfather, Roy Thomson. In the 1930s, Roy bought radio and press holdings in North America, after which he expanded into Britain. By the middle of the 1960s, his organization, the Thomson Organisation, was international, and its interests spanned television, printing, and publishing. Though the company has shifted its focus to other businesses, its investments have ensured the Thomsons remain Canada's richest family.

You may also like: Richest women in America