Tong: The Story of Tong Louie, Vancouver's Quiet Titan

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

Published four years after his death in 1998, this sensitive biography
of Vancouver industrialist and philanthropist Tong Louie recounts and
celebrates the life of a remarkable man. Through his business
enterprises, which included the H.Y. Louie Company Ltd., IGA
supermarkets, and the London Drugs chain, and his generosity to
innumerable charities, Louie touched the lives of millions. A modest and
private person, Louie found it so uncomfortable to talk about himself
that little was known of his personal life even by members of his own
family.

His chosen biographer, longtime personal friend and corporate adviser
Ernest Perrault, spent years amassing the material in this volume. With
the help of Louie’s family, friends, and business associates, Perrault
has succeeded in producing a worthy tribute to his friend, and one that
communicates well the values of industry, self-discipline, and giving
that guided Louie’s life.

The story begins with a short biography of Tong Louie’s father, H.Y.
Louie, who emigrated from China to Canada in spite of the bitter racial
discrimination in this country at the time, and around the turn of the
20th century established himself in Vancouver as a wholesaler and
retailer of groceries and farm supplies. Tong Louie’s roots were here,
in the family business and in Vancouver’s Chinese community. At his
death he was still in Vancouver, and still active in the much-expanded
family businesses, but his influence was international. His honors
include the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia.

Lavishly illustrated with corporate and family photographs, Tong is a
“must-have” for any Canadian studies collection.