It is hard to believe that the Toronto Star would give Magna International founder Frank Stronach free space in the Star’s business section to express his addled ideas. The other day, he told us he doesn’t like licenses, rules or taxes for small business. He thinks small business is any business with less than 400 employees. He thinks businesses bigger than that should tell politicians what to do. He is likely unaware that he is promoting fascism.
Frank Stronach will be 90 next year. He has more than a few loonies tucked away for his dotage. (The most recent estimates range from $1 billion to about $3 billion.) He doesn’t need a tag day.
Maybe he donated some of his loonies to the truckers in Ottawa. He agrees with them. He worries that their methods might have drowned out their message. He thinks the truckers embody many of the values that make this country special. That is hardly the first time that someone has told us that Canadians are obstinate and pig-headed.
But as much as Stronach backs away from the truckers’ tactics, his approval of their endurance in facing cold weather, sleeping in trucks and campers is there and confirmed. He even suggests that the truckers embody the value of hard work, personal autonomy and individual freedom.
Stronach writes that he worries that there is a “troubling trend today towards the socialization and collectivization of individuals, with the result that everyone is pressured to think and act the same and everyone increasingly looks to the state for the solution to every problem.” He thinks this is because of the freedom that he considers stripped away.
The more columns and words I read under Frank Stronach’s byline, the stronger the feeling I get that this is not Stronach’s writing. Stronach certainly does not talk this way. It is either a hell of a good editor (obviously not from the Star) or an erudite ghost. Having ghosted many speeches, articles and books over the years, my guess is a ghost. Obviously not one who studied Italian fascism of the 1920s and 30s.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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