Career
Born in Montreal, she moved to Sudbury in 1931 after accepting a job as a secretary at the hardware store operated by Baxter Ricard"s father Félix. Their broadcast holdings later expanded to include CFBR in 1957, Northern Cable in the early 1970s, and CJMX-FM and the MCTV television system in 1980. They were also shareholders in the Toronto-area cable and broadcasting company CUC Broadcasting.
She also served on Sudbury"s municipal urban planning committee, and on the board of directors of the Sudbury General Hospital.
Beginning in 1990, the Ricards began selling off their broadcast holdings, with the television stations acquired by Baton Broadcasting and the radio stations acquired by Pelmorex. The Ricards had no children to inherit their wealth, and began to plan a charitable foundation, which was formally launched after Baxter"s death as the Fondation Baxter & Alma Ricard.
The foundation"s beneficiaries included Cambrian College, Laurentian University and the Sudbury General Hospital, although her donation to the hospital — which had been earmarked for the purchase of an Medical Research Institute machine — was withdrawn after the government of Mike Harris announced that the hospital would be merged into the Sudbury Regional Hospital and the Medical Research Institute machine would be delivered to the formerly competing Laurentian Hospital instead. Ricard also donated $1 million to Saint Michael"s Hospital in Toronto for a study on the health impacts of inner city poverty.
The hospital created the Baxter and Alma Ricard Chair in Inner City Health in 1998.
In 1998, Baxter made her largest philanthropic donation, giving $23 million to create the Fondation Baxter & Alma Ricard fellowship fund for French Canadian university students in university graduate studies. The fund remains in operation today. In 1999, she endowed a research chair in neurosurgery at the University of Toronto.
Ricard died on June 2, 2003 in Sudbury, aged 96.
Her funeral was held at the city"s Sainte-Anne-des-Pins church, and was attended by dignitaries including businessman Paul Desmarais and former Governor General Roméo LeBlanc.
