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

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

Small farmers need our support

June 27, 2023

Canada’s small family farmers do backbreaking work, day in and day out, from sunup to sundown, providing Canadians with the necessities of life. Yet despite how hard they work, and despite how vital their work is, they often don’t make very much in return. They plant, grow and harvest many of the fruits and vegetables we eat. And they often struggle to eke out a living based solely on the income they generate from their farm businesses. It’s not fair or right — and it’s a problem that’s been ignored by Canadian policymakers for far too long. I operate an organic restaurant and marketplace, and I’m constantly speaking and meeting family farmers from all over southern Ontario. Many of them

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.

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