It was about 15 years ago while I was on the phone with then Assiniboia mayor Renaud Bissonnette who told me an international businessman from nearby Limerick was going to do something big for Assiniboia.
He urged me to contact Bill Shurniak at his Limerick farm home, but warned he wasn’t often home. I’d never heard of Shurniak.
Sometime later, Bissonnette revealed that Shurniak would build an art gallery and gift it to the town. Bissonnette said they had a hard time convincing the community to accept that gift.
My experience is that folks in Assiniboia have an obsession with any recreation facility becoming a burden on the taxpayer, be it the impressive Prince of Wales Centre, the rink, or an art gallery.
When the gallery opened, Shurniak told the crowd his money would fund the art gallery housing his extensive collection from five continents. If at any time in future the community no longer wanted the gallery, it and the art collection would be sold with proceeds going to the University of Saskatchewan for scholarships.
Shurniak’s business and negotiating skills developed over 50 years helped reach the compromise.
What surprised me was how many people in the crowd who he addressed by name. He was rarely home but clearly kept in close touch with his community.
The impressive art gallery and awesome collection was his way to thank the community and the people he started with as a bank teller in Assiniboia. The gallery has become a major tourist attraction to this rural service centre, pulling in busloads of visitors.
As Shurniak’s career progressed, he became executive director and chief financial officer of the massive Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Limited with $133 billion US assets.
His career took him to five continents, where in his spare time he prowled the back roads looking for promising artists to add to his collected works.
Bill Shurniak never forgot his roots, where he came from, the boyhood days herding cattle on road allowances during the drought. His art gallery dedicated rooms to the communities in the region with the cafe dedicated to his parents, who homesteaded near Wood Mountain, later moving to the Limerick district.
The gallery has an office for the Assiniboia Arts Council and regularly exhibits local and regional artists.
Shurniak loved to get up at daybreak to sip a coffee on the deck at the farm and listen to the symphony of bird songs coming from the trees.
He hired a manager for the art gallery but Shurniak did the gardening, something he really enjoyed.
Soft spoken, thoughtful, humble, a gentleman — all describe this man who helped build the Hutchison Whampoa empire.
He absolutely declined to talk about his business career on or off the record. It was private and had nothing to do with the art gallery.
We lost Bill this month at age 89 after a long battle with disease. He was one of a kind. He will be missed.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
