Robert K. Irving was part of the fourth generation to work in the family business, which started in 1882.The Canadian Press/The Canadian Press
Robert Kenneth Irving was so focused on building successful businesses in New Brunswick, he once nearly flew halfway across the country in the wrong direction.
“We were in the airport in Toronto heading to the airport in Moncton. I asked how business was and he got so excited and distracted, the two of us walked on to a plane to Winnipeg,” recalled deputy chair of TD Securities Frank McKenna, who was New Brunswick premier from 1987 to 1997 and later Canadian ambassador to the United States.
“It’s an example of his enthusiasm and salesmanship,” Mr. McKenna said.
Mr. Irving, who died of cancer at his Moncton home on May 19 at age 71, was co-CEO of J.D. Irving, Ltd., since 1992. Robert was part of the fourth generation to work in the family business, which started in 1882 when his great-grandfather James Dergavel Irving bought a sawmill in Bouctouche, N.B. Robert’s grandfather Kenneth Colin (K.C.) Irving expanded into multiple businesses, which he passed on to his three sons, including James Kenneth (J.K.) Irving, Robert’s father.
Until his death, Robert shared with his older brother, Jim, the CEO role at the company, which employs some 20,000 people across industries as varied as forestry, agriculture, food processing, transportation and shipbuilding. Those and other interests including Irving Oil have led to the family being listed as the country’s seventh-wealthiest by Maclean’s magazine last year, with an estimated fortune of $15.8-billion.
Operating out of the family’s long-time home base of Saint John, the more imposing Jim oversees the traditional Irving businesses such as forestry, pulp and paper, and shipbuilding. Robert, meanwhile, grew the Irving family business from Moncton, where he set up his own base of operations in 1977. The divisions he oversaw included Irving Tissue, Cavendish Farms and Midland Transport.
Irving Tissue, Canada’s No. 2 producer of toilet paper, paper towels, facial tissue and serviettes, started in Dieppe, N.B., on the eastern boundary of Moncton, and grew to include factories in Toronto, New York State and Georgia.
Cavendish Farms, the company’s potato processing division, sells approximately one billion pounds of French fries a year. It’s the fourth-largest potato company in North America, and has expanded to two plants in PEI to become the province’s largest private-sector GDP contributor and largest net exporter. It also has plants in Alberta, Ontario and North Dakota.
Midland Transport, the trucking division, is another important piece of the business. Since K.C. Irving’s day, the company has believed in vertical integration – owning and controlling the supply chain – and Midland allows Irving products to travel in Irving trucks. And, as Robert told The Globe and Mail in 2003, “We can put Irving fuel in the tanks.”
The Irving family business has long enjoyed dominance in its home province. Mr. McKenna joked that “being premier of New Brunswick was an interesting experience because I got the chance to run a third of the province, the McCains had a third, and Irving had a third.”
The former New Brunswick premier was referring to entrepreneurs Harrison and Wallace McCain, both of whom worked for Irving companies before founding a business that grew into a competing multi-billion-dollar dynasty.
Mr. McKenna described Robert as “an extraordinary business leader. Whether it’s the French fry business, whether it’s packaging, consumer products, he was competing against some of the giants in the world and these factories were ultra-modern, running 24 hours a day.”
Along the way, Mr. Irving bought and turned around the struggling local major junior hockey team, building the Moncton Wildcats into a model franchise with a dressing room that rivals several NHL facilities.
Mr. Irving also made generous donations to community causes, and his company’s rise was tied closely to Moncton’s rally from economic lows.
“If you go back to the 90s and 80s, Moncton was on its knees,” said long-time University of Moncton public administration professor and scholar Donald Savoie. “Today when you come to Moncton and Dieppe you see Irving all over the place.”
In his 2005 book The Codfathers, former Globe and Mail reporter Gordon Pitts wrote of an “undercurrent of rivalry between the two brothers, although in the final analysis, Jim Jr. is clearly the one in charge.”
Dr. Savoie said, however, that the brothers “worked hand in glove.”
“They were co-CEOs not just in name but fact. They got along like a house on fire and they made the point family can be in business too. It doesn’t have to turn sour.”
Robert “was a driver and he was tenacious,” Dr. Savoie said, adding that he appreciated that the bilingual Robert always started conversations in French.
“He’s not going to be easily replaced.”
In his book, Mr. Pitts described the Irvings as “tough and unbending in business, pious and charitable as friends and neighbours.”
Another former premier remembers Mr. Irving’s personal touch leading one of three major capital campaigns that combined to raise more than $20-million for the Friends of the Moncton Hospital Foundation.
“He wanted me to make a donation and wanted Medavie to make a donation. He took the time to make the call; he wasn’t just an honorary chair,” said Bernard Lord, CEO of the medical care insurance company Medavie Blue Cross, who was New Brunswick’s leader from 1999 to 2006.
“That, to me, speaks to his commitment and devotion to his community.”
When Mr. Lord was in a similar role raising funds for the University of Moncton, Mr. Irving and his father, J.K. Irving, delivered a cheque personally.
In addition to making donations of $1-million or more to causes such as Food Depot Alimentaire Inc. (a charity that distributes food to food banks and other community organizations) and the Canadian Cancer Society, Mr. Irving was also known to help with personal situations. When Wildcats star Jonathan Roy was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma during the 2000 playoffs, Mr. Irving paid for his travel and treatment in the U.S. Mr. Roy recovered and went on to a long pro hockey career.
In 2006, Mr. Irving met Brent Daborn, a 10-year-old Wildcats fan with cerebral palsy. After Mr. Irving learned that the boy’s mother was raising him on her own, he began giving them hockey tickets. For the next 20 years, he would fist bump Mr. Daborn and give him a chocolate bar before home games.
Robert Irving with Brent Daborn, a young man with cerebral palsy.Kim Daborn/Supplied
Born on Dec. 3, 1954, in Saint John, N.B., Robert was a second son for James Kenneth (J.K.) Irving and Jean Elizabeth Saunders Irving. He grew up with his brother, Jim, and younger sisters, Mary-Jean and Judith. After earning a business degree from Acadia University, Robert established Irving’s Moncton operations in 1977.
People weren’t always happy about Irving’s expansion. In 1980, when the company purchased the PEI potato processing facility that became Cavendish Farms, the general manager Robert Irving replaced sued for unjust dismissal and won.
“I needed to know everything that was going on, and I knew Robert would tell me,” J.K. Irving testified, emblematic of the family’s “farmer’s footsteps in the soil” philosophy of being hands-on with details.
Irving met 10-year-old Wildcats fan Brent Daborn in 2006.Kim Daborn/Supplied
Growing the French fry business put Irving head-to-head with fellow New Brunswick business giants the McCains. When plans for a competing plant came too close to the McCain Foods headquarters, it “got the McCains’ lather up,” Mr. McKenna recalled. After “pretty animated visits from both families” the matter was resolved with Irving cancelling the plant.
“These families really respected each other and were very close,” Mr. McKenna said. “I always found it joyful to watch Robert and [McCain Foods chairman and Saint John Sea Dogs majority owner] Scott McCain competing in hockey. They loved each other. They competed fiercely on the ice but afterwards were all bon ami [friendly]”
Mr. Irving’s many accolades include membership in the New Brunswick and PEI Business Halls of Fame, the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame, the Order of New Brunswick and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UPEI. He also received the Equestrian Canada Gold Medal award for his support of his wife’s international dressage riding career. (Jill Irving won a gold medal at the 2019 Pan Am Games.)
Mr. Irving often accessorized his suit with a Moncton Wildcats baseball cap, combining billionaire business savvy with blue-collar approachability. At the old Moncton Coliseum he could usually be found – and sometimes heard, especially by referees – just behind the home team bench.
John Torchetti, who worked with the Wildcats in two separate stints 13 years apart, recalls Mr. Irving’s penchant for details, even extending to a Montreal dinner during the QMJHL draft weekend.
“He goes, ‘I’ll be right back, I want to see what kind of fries they sell here.’ He went in the back and asked to speak to the manager. When he came back, he said, ‘They’re our fries John, they’re our fries,” Mr. Torchetti said with a laugh.
Mr. Irving was known for having regular calls or meetings with his key managers. Much like the family, his closest business associates rarely granted interviews on the subject, but Danny Flynn, Wildcats head coach from 2007 to 2013, is one of several coaches who share recollections of receiving a phone call from Mr. Irving every night.
“He always asked lots of questions. He was a very smart man, but he was always trying to study the game and learn more about it,” Mr. Flynn said.
In 2005, Mr. Irving gave Ted Nolan his first coaching job after eight years out of the game. The Wildcats won the league before losing the Memorial Cup final at home to the Quebec Remparts. The opportunity relaunched Mr. Nolan’s career as an NHL coach. (Mr. Nolan’s work on behalf of Indigenous youth prompted his appointment last year as an officer of the Order of Canada.)
Robert Irving “was a very special man, a very caring man and a very giving man,” Mr. Nolan said, fighting back tears. “He made my life better. Take away all his companies and all his net worth and whatever. Just the type of person he is.”
Current coach Gardiner MacDougall got the team back to the Memorial Cup last year, making it as far as the semi-finals, but Mr. Irving’s dream of the Wildcats winning the top prize in junior hockey remains unfulfilled after 30 years as the team’s owner.
The Irving family announced last fall that Robert’s surgery in July 2025 had been successful and that he was undergoing further treatment. When Mr. Irving was unable to attend playoff games this year, however, Mr. MacDougall suspected that his health had declined.
“Last year, almost every playoff game he found a way [to attend]. He could have a business meeting in Montreal or Toronto or whatever and always found a way to be there for the game. You’d see the passion he brings and you just can’t help but have a high standard,” Mr. MacDougall said.
“He’s a legend in our city, our province, in Atlantic Canada and really a legend in Canada. He’s the ultimate difference-maker in what he’s done for our region.”
Robert Irving leaves his wife of 39 years, Jill Irving (née Gougeon); their four children, Megan, Meredith, Olivia and Robert James (R.J.); and four grandchildren.
You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.