McDonald’s Canada founder George Cohon dies at 86

George Cohon, the Chicago-born businessman responsible for expanding the McDonald’s empire in Canada, has died at the age of 86.

“Last night we said farewell to my Dad,” Mark Cohon said in a post on X. “Our family, Canada and the world lost a remarkable man.”

Cohon was a corporate lawyer in his father’s firm in Chicago when he decided to move to Toronto and open the first McDonald’s location in Eastern Canada in London, Ont., on Nov. 11, 1968 – one year after the first McDonald’s restaurant outside the United States opened in Richmond, B.C. Three years later he would go on to become the chairman, president and CEO of McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada, holding those titles until July 1992.

“We didn’t know a soul, we didn’t have much money and McDonald’s then was far from being the household word it is today,” he wrote in his best-selling autobiography ‘To Russia with Fries’ about the move to Canada.

In another first Cohon was also responsible for bringing the symbolic Golden Arches of the fast food hamburger chain to Russia, opening the first restaurant in January 1990.

Cohon was also responsible for opening the first Ronald McDonald House in Canada in 1981. There are now 16 Ronald McDonald Houses and 17 Ronald McDonald Family Rooms in hospitals across Canada helping more than 25,000 families whose children are receiving medical treatment.

In 1982, Cohon spearheaded the effort to save Toronto’s Santa Claus parade after Eaton’s said it would no longer be able to fund the annual parade.

“Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the Santa Claus parade,” he later told the Toronto Star in a 2016 interview about his involvement

Cohon was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1987 and later elevated to Companion, the highest level of the order, in 2019 for his charitable work around the world.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Cohon’s passing “an extraordinary loss,” noting that his passion for serving and supporting others was always evident.

“George Cohon was remarkable. He was an accomplished businessman who never stopped giving back, and who dedicated himself to lifting others up,” Trudeau said in a post on X. “To his family, to his friends, and to all those across the country and around the world who he so selflessly served: I’m sending you my deepest condolences and keeping you in my thoughts.”