Frank Stronach

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

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.

Business magnate Frank Stronach calls for more companies to embrace ‘fair business’ approach

June 14, 2023

Frank Stronach, the founder of automotive parts supplier Magna International, a company he started in a garage and now has sales of over US$35 billion, has a few ideas about how to make Canada more prosperous, democratic and free. On Tuesday night, the Order of Canada recipient and 2023 Executive in Residence at the University of Toronto Scarborough delivered the first of two planned special lectures. Much of his talk focused on his management philosophy called fair enterprise, a profit-sharing model he credits for accelerating the growth of Magna. According to Stronach, once employees at Magna participated in profit sharing, the company’s revenue increased 60 per cent in the first year, 100 per cent in the second and 200 per

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

Who’s looking out for our small businesses?

January 17, 2023

Many Canadians have bought some lumber or kitchen and bathroom accessories at Home Depot over the years. The company, which opened its first stores just outside of Atlanta, Georgia in 1978, has grown into what is today the world’s largest improvement retailer with approximately 2,300 stores throughout North America. A few weeks ago, one of the co-founders of Home Depot said that if he were to start his company all over again in today’s suffocating business environment, he doubts whether it could have ever grown any larger in size than around 15 stores. I’ve often wondered myself if I were to start Magna all over again today, instead of more than 50 years ago, would I have been able to

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