Frank Stronach

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

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

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

Bringing back manufacturing jobs the key to Canada’s economic future

May 30, 2023

Canada used to be a strong manufacturing nation. Some of our biggest and best known companies were manufacturing powerhouses like Massey-Harris and Northern Telecom. We made everything from tractors and trains to automobiles and airplanes. We also had our own homegrown manufacturers like Inglis and Electrohome that built made-in-Canada washing machines and TVs. One of the first jobs I had when I immigrated to Canada as a young toolmaker was working in a factory that produced parts for the ill-fated Avro Arrow, which at the time was the world’s fastest fighter jet. But Canada hardly ever makes world-leading, technologically advanced products anymore. One of the reasons for this is that we no longer have the pool of skilled technical trade

Whatever happened to balancing the budget?

February 28, 2023

The great British economist Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that countries should be run like any well-managed household: they shouldn’t spend more revenue than they raise. It’s a time-honoured principle. Every family, farmer and small business owner in Canada knows that if you continuously spend more money than you make you’ll eventually go bankrupt. Why, then, does that same principle never seem to apply to governments, which routinely run deficits regardless of which party holds the reins of power?Most Canadians would agree that we have to begin paying down our national debt, but we can only do that if we first start balancing the federal budget. Following decades of budget shortfalls and an international credit rating downgrade,

Is Canada still a business-friendly country?

December 13, 2022

When it comes to doing business, Canada may not be as friendly as it once was. Thirty or forty years ago, whenever my company opened a new manufacturing facility or R&D centre in southern Ontario, municipalities would bend over backwards to help us — offering everything from widening the road to installing new traffic lights. In the U.S., job-hungry local and state governments would go even further, promising major tax incentives and free land if we chose to locate there. But the business-friendly environment that existed in Canada years ago has largely vanished. Instead, businesses looking to open a store or factory get slapped with piles of paperwork and never-ending fees. I’ve been trying to get a business operation up