Frank Stronach

Giving employees an ownership stake

February 21, 2023

Giving employees a stake in the company they work for has been one of my guiding business philosophies. I’ve always believed that if employees have a real and tangible stake in the company’s success — if employees are part-owners — then they will be more motivated to produce a better product for a better price. The reason why is simple: as an owner or part-owner, you instinctively want to do everything to the best of your abilities. You want to produce work of the highest calibre because you’re part of something you take pride in. And most importantly, you know that your contributions to the bottom line will be financially rewarded. In the last federal budget, the Canadian government announced

Unleash small business by exempting them from corporate taxes

May 2, 2023

Small businesses are often described as the backbone of our economy — and that’s because they are. They develop new products and technologies that drive economic growth and create new jobs. But if small businesses are so important, why aren’t we doing more to support their success and foster even greater growth? Small businesses bore the brunt of the economic fallout during the pandemic. The on-again, off-again lockdowns dried up revenue, drove away customers and made employee retention very difficult. I often wonder how many of the small businesses that went under during the pandemic could have become another Magna International? Legendary entrepreneur Richard Branson famously said that all big businesses start small. When I started Magna, I opened up

Save the family farm

February 14, 2023

When you think about King Charles III, the last thing you probably think about is family farming. But Canada’s new monarch made an impassioned plea over a year ago for small family farmers in the United Kingdom and around the world to come together in a co-operative movement to better ensure their survival. A strong advocate of organic farming, Charles has also created what he calls a “Terra Carta,” a charter that lays out a roadmap for producing environmentally sustainable, healthy food, while ensuring the survival of small family farms. But in the U.K., as in Canada, many small family farms are barely scraping by, and those who grew up on such farms are increasingly fleeing the fields and barns

The government beast must be tamed

April 25, 2023

Who is the largest employer in Canada? You might think it would be one of the big banks or maybe a company like Bell or Loblaw. But you’d be wrong. It’s the federal government. Governments at all levels and their multitude of agencies, Crown corporations and departments employ a large chunk of Canada’s labour market. According to the Fraser Institute, as of July 2022, Canada’s public sector represented 21.8 per cent of all jobs in the economy — and growing. That means that nearly one out of every four Canadians works for the government — a staggering percentage, which is nearly double that of the United States and almost the same as communist Venezuela. The federal government alone has more

Fixing capitalism by mandating profit sharing

April 11, 2023

One of my favourite books published over the last few years is “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,” by Robert Reich, a public policy professor at UC Berkeley and secretary of labour in the Clinton administration. Reich’s main argument is that capitalism is damaged and that the rich are getting richer while the poor and middle class are getting poorer, creating the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in nearly a century. He’s right that capitalism is a system that enriches only a few. I also agree with Reich’s call for a revival of corporate profit sharing, which was much more widespread in the 20th century, when some of America’s biggest and most well-known companies had profit-sharing programs.

High interest rates and inflation has put Canadians on a financial precipice

August 23, 2023

Canadians are worried about runaway inflation, rising interest rates and their personal finances. Many are burdened with a lot of debt. And a growing number of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque and just scraping by. A study published last month by MNP, Canada’s largest consumer insolvency firm, showed that more than 50 per cent of Canadians say they are only $200 away from being unable to meet their financial obligations. What’s more, according to MNP, two-thirds of Canadians are concerned about their ability to pay their debts due to rising interest rates, and approximately three in five Canadians say they’ll be in financial difficulty if interest rates go much higher. That sort of stress and economic worry is putting