Manny Batshaw celebrates his 100th birthday

WATCH ABOVE: Manny Batshaw has reached an amazing milestone: a 100th birthday. Peter Anthony Holder has more.

MONTREAL – Manny Batshaw changed the way Quebec handled child welfare and on Friday, attained a milestone few will ever attain.

He turned 100-years-old.

Batshaw, along with friends and family, gathered at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Westmount to celebrate his birthday.

Back in the 1970’s, he was the head of the Batshaw Committee, which brought ground-breaking change to the way people viewed children with problems – and perhaps more importantly, how they were treated.

“He’s a fixer. Whenever he sees something that he thinks is not right, he wants to do something about it,” said Mark Batshaw about his father.

“If everyone was like that, if everyone in Montreal, in Canada, in the world just took one thing that they wanted to fix and did it, we would have a much better world and that’s what my father was always about.”

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At retirement age, when most people usually begin to slow down, Batshaw picked up steam.

“In those days, 65 was the mandatory retirement age and Manny decided he wanted to work with me as my sort of guru and we worked together for 17 years,” said Charles Bronfman, one of Batshaw’s close friends.

“Finally when he was 82 I said ‘Manny that’s enough.’ So what does he do? He went out and started raising money for the Chest hospital.”