Frank Stronach

Intrusive government regulators must back off

April 11, 2023

Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan used to say that the scariest words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Audiences loved that line because it really hit home. However well-intentioned our government officials are, they usually end up making everything a little more difficult, a little more costly and a little more complicated. About 10 minutes up the road from my office is a new eight-storey, 422,000-square-foot facility built by the local regional municipality. The new administrative office, which cost more than $200 million to build, will oversee a variety of public services and house 1,500 government employees. What worries me most is what many of these civil servants will be doing day

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

Canada must slash bureaucracy to reap economic prosperity

June 13, 2023

When I was chairman of Magna International Inc., I could always tell how competitive one of our factories was the moment I set foot in the front door. All I had to do was look at how many people were working upstairs in the administrative and executive offices. When you run a factory, it doesn’t matter how productive the workers on the factory floor are if there are too many people working in administration. If overhead isn’t kept trimmed to the bone, the business will simply not be competitive. This same principle applies to countries as well as companies. One of the great dangers any democratic society faces is the enormous buildup of bureaucracy over time as government grows and

Socialism is not the solution to inequality

January 10, 2023

Most of us seek balance in all aspects of our lives. But that same ongoing quest to attain balance should also guide the functioning of our society, our government and our economy. And right now, Canada is unbalanced in many areas that shape the quality of our lives. Take wealth, for example. According to a report from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in 2019, the top one per cent of Canadians held 25 per cent of the country’s net wealth, while the bottom 40 per cent of Canadian families barely owned more than one per cent. The report also found that the household wealth gap — the difference in the share of net wealth owned by households at

Schools have role to play in helping children grow strong and healthy

July 25, 2023

Most parents would surely agree that our nation’s number 1 priority should be the health of our children. But if the old saying that “you are what you eat” is true, then our kids are in a lot of trouble. Many children are eating unhealthy, non-organic foods at home, at school and at fast food restaurants. It’s one of the main reasons why we’ve seen an alarming rise in illnesses such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes in Canadian children. These illnesses drastically reduce the quality of life for a growing number of children and hinder their ability to learn. They also cost our health-care system millions of dollars each year. The universal hope and prayer of Canadian parents is

Canadians need to rise up and fight for their prosperity

August 15, 2023

Canadians know deep in their bones that our country is in trouble and our economy is sick. We also know that we have to fix things because time is quickly running out. The national debt is a case in point. If we don’t tackle this problem now, the buildup of debt and the interest that keeps piling on top of it will drastically affect future generations, who will be stuck with the bill. And that’s not the only economic problem we face. The gap between the wealthy and the workers is growing larger and larger. Many Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque. And it’s become increasingly difficult for young Canadians to find good-paying jobs or afford to buy a home.