Frank Stronach may not be a household name in Canada, but many of us are at least somewhat familiar with him.
He’s probably best known as the founder of Magna International, a large automotive parts company, but there are other reasons to have heard of him.
A few years back he got into a very public spat with other members of the Stronach clan over how the family business was being managed.
And then there was his foray into Austrian politics, when he founded a new party in 2012, called Team Stronach, and even sat in the country’s parliament for a while.
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Mainly, however, he is known as one of Canada’s really rich guys.
As a result, when I found out he wrote a weekly column for the National Post, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see headlines such as “The case for an economic charter of rights and responsibilities,” “The national debt — a ticking time bomb for future generations” and “Canada must slash bureaucracy to reap economic prosperity.”
These are all topics that I imagine would be firmly in the wheelhouse of someone like Frank Stronach.
However, I was a little taken aback to read one of his more recent columns, headlined “Small farmers need our support.”
I must admit I hadn’t thought the businessman would have had much of an interest in small farmers, but it turns out he’s also the founder of Stronach International, “whose mission is to enhance society and the environment through micro-mobility transportation and organic agri-business.”
So that’s likely the reason behind his support for small farmers. However, it’s his solution that really caught my attention.
In his June 27 column, he suggested eliminating all income and property taxes for family farms with less than 300 acres if half the farm is organic.
It’s not the first time Stronach has proposed eliminating taxes for a certain segment of society. In May he wrote a column in which he floated the idea of eliminating income tax for any small business with fewer than 300 employees.
Now he’s pretty much recommending the same thing for (very) small organic farmers.
I wonder how many of those are even left anymore.
