On behalf of the Board of Directors of CANES Community Care I am announcing that Gord Gunning - our long serving CEO – has advised that he plans to retire effective March 31, 2025. After over 20 years of loyal and dedicated service to CANES, Gord has decided that it is time to spend more time with family and friends, to travel the world and to improve his golf game.
Over the years Gord has proven to be an insightful strategist, a strong leader and innovator with exceptional business development skills. He has demonstrated a unique ability to bring diverse groups together and create new partnerships that have achieved significant results. We now have a strong agency with an operating budget in excess of $40M and a staff complement of 240 employees. We also have 12 subcontractors that give us the capacity of over 600 staff. When Gord started at CANES he inherited a budget of just $2M and 60 employees.
His single focus over the years has been to improve our care services for seniors and expand our catchment areas. When he started as our CEO we operated in Rexdale. We now provide services from Woodbridge to Oakville and Mississauga to Orangeville and Dufferin County.
Through his leadership efforts at CANES he has received many awards - including the Bhayana Foundation Leadership Award from United Way of Greater Toronto and the Gold Award for Strategic Planning from the International Facilitators Association. He has also spearheaded innovative approaches to planning, such as the Radical Efficiency Model developed in the UK and the CANES Blue Swan Initiative utilizing his learnings from the Harvard Business School.
We thank Gord for taking CANES to the next level and recognize his significant contribution to our organization. We are much stronger for it and we are confident that with this solid foundation that CANES Community Care can continue to grow and develop new programs to support our seniors. CANES has a very positive future and the Board of Directors will now commence a search for a new CEO.
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” Fred Rogers
Here’s to new beginnings Gord.
Doug Thomas,
Chair of the Board
