Juno News - November 24, 2023


Do Canadians need a charter of economic rights？ (feat. Frank Stronach)


Episode Stats

Length

48 minutes

Words per Minute

145.35233

Word Count

7,093

Sentence Count

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show
00:00:05.880 well we often talk about rights and freedoms and we think of these in the context of freedom
00:00:14.200 of speech of democratic rights equality rights what about economic rights are these things that
00:00:20.040 you've even considered today on the andrew lawton show we're doing a deep dive into those because
00:00:24.880 a new initiative has been formed by the legendary titan of industry frank stronic called the stronic
00:00:31.840 foundation for economic rights frank it's wonderful to talk to you thanks for sitting down with me
00:00:37.200 good it's nice to be with you answer yeah so why do we'll talk about what those economic rights should
00:00:42.960 be in in a couple of moments but first and foremost why does there need to be in your view an economic
00:00:48.800 charter of rights embedded in the canadian constitution well let me try to simplify things
00:00:56.320 i think most people agree politicians businessmen people women and men and many other people agree
00:01:04.400 if the economy doesn't work nothing else will work the economy doesn't work we cannot feed the hungry
00:01:12.480 we cannot look after the most fragile people the elderly the sick and the handicapped but but we do
00:01:21.280 not talk what drives the economy it's funny it's it's uh strange so the economy is driven by three forces
00:01:31.840 smart managers hard-working employees and investors
00:01:36.800 smart managers so all three have a basic right to the outcome which is profits the message i want to
00:01:45.360 get across is walkers have a moral right to some of the profits to help to generate without them we
00:01:54.800 could not generate a profit right so it's to me it's amazing that we don't do it more right so let's talk
00:02:03.200 about that because your company magna did this and you know gave employees a share of the profits and
00:02:09.040 found that it increased productivity quite significantly so there was a an economic benefit
00:02:14.400 to it it wasn't just a charitable endeavor you've called for there to be a legal right for employees
00:02:21.440 of large companies to have a share of profits and i know a lot of free market conservative types would
00:02:26.720 be a little bit nervous about that because it sounds like you're telling you're asking government to
00:02:31.040 tell businesses how to structure their finances so why is that appropriate in your view well we
00:02:36.400 there's a lot of things where government tells uh citizens or people speed limits on cars right
00:02:43.040 on on roads right so there's many many rules and regulations that we have it is the economy because
00:02:51.120 it's a fundamental right the economy is driven by three forces so i uh what i'd like to do is
00:03:01.760 i like to uh uh small companies have always been the backbone of a country right when you take a
00:03:12.720 closer look uh all the new inventions the new uh gadgets the new patents etc etc is done pretty well
00:03:22.000 most of by small companies and small companies the tax revenue uh the government gets uh yes i
00:03:30.880 think it's they're the highest contributed to the to to the taxes right for the simple reason
00:03:36.960 there's so many small businesses and the business don't make a lot of monies but they have employees
00:03:44.560 and employers pay a wage tax right so uh so i'm saying small business is uh
00:03:56.560 the way small business actually works is uh you know a man or a woman saved up some monies and say look
00:04:05.040 i'm gonna try this and that and take a risk and uh some succeed and some don't that's uh that's the way
00:04:13.360 it is but uh when they start out in business they don't make any monies because they buy a new piece
00:04:21.760 equipment or they hire somebody their main thing is to do they realize if they have more employees
00:04:30.400 the chances are they make more monies right so so i'm saying we should small business should not
00:04:37.200 pay business tax because the forms they have to fill out whom they can write for lunch or dinner could
00:04:44.480 then they could they write it off with a business we should we should scrap that right in essence i
00:04:52.080 could see maybe a thousand magnets high it would be tremendous if we have small business and take the
00:04:58.960 red tape off totally uh because there is so many government regulations the only two rules will apply
00:05:08.160 huh workplace safety because you don't want to see that somebody loses a hand or whatever right so
00:05:14.480 that's important and the environment you could not dump poison in your backyard right so those are
00:05:20.480 the only two rules and everything else you very well got to take off in essence i'm saying look canada
00:05:28.000 functioned fine 40 50 years ago we should maybe go back with the thing here and and yes we build buildings
00:05:35.680 they they you know you still when you when you build a building it's you still need the engineers
00:05:43.360 stamp that they carry it that carry the snow load etc etc but get the bureaucracy out okay it's uh
00:05:51.600 as an example i'm waiting for close to three years now to get a farmer's market to permit they can
00:05:56.880 build the farmer's market it's three what what do you like what's the hold up but what is it that you
00:06:01.600 need permission to do was uh you know first i i had uh five thousand square feet and the bylaws at the
00:06:11.440 maximum we could have three thousand square feet for farmers markets right after half a year i i kind
00:06:17.440 of they told me so they were always you know it's just incredible right and you have i mean in your
00:06:24.000 position you have the money you have the staff you can navigate these things if you're someone
00:06:28.960 that wanted to build that farmer's market as your only source of income it wouldn't work you you
00:06:33.680 wouldn't be able to do it i could never build the magnet anymore right to me and uh you know uh 30
00:06:40.800 years ago within two weeks i had a permit right if i wonder you know if there was things were
00:06:47.040 uncomplicated right so now it's it's you know uh i'm building a new factory now it's just about finished
00:06:55.840 where i built the small electric cars the factory was was maybe half finished i had to build in the thing
00:07:02.720 here from the township i gotta i gotta pay a million nine hundred thousand two times so what's that for
00:07:11.280 well that is that we allow you to build a factory wow it's yeah it's uh it's incredible right so i
00:07:21.920 remember about 50 years ago when the first computers came onto market the slogan was if you got one of
00:07:29.360 those computers you could eliminate a total office floor now when i look around in the cities might
00:07:36.560 have been drawn to montreal ottawa or vancouver or in the states or in europe i see 20 times more office
00:07:45.920 buildings high rises high rises what do you think they do in there they don't make products in there
00:07:51.600 it's regulations and financial transactions so we have a dilemma and that all started about
00:07:59.280 again about 50 years ago when wall street was pushing uh business you're gonna make more monies
00:08:07.280 and the unions on the other hand pushed and said look you gotta we need higher wages
00:08:14.160 so business did the easy way out they went to china so we don't really make things huh when you when
00:08:20.640 use your building go i'm up no it's a warehouse yes it's not a factor where we make things and if
00:08:27.120 you don't make things you the living standards will will get down by warehousing it's not right that means
00:08:35.040 you buy somebody else's goods so to go back to the problems you're trying to solve here with this
00:08:41.760 economic charter do you believe that the capitalist free market project has failed people or do you
00:08:48.800 believe that it just needs to be tweaked no to copy we gotta we gotta make sure right so so i'm
00:08:55.760 starting not to say uh i divide businesses uh below 300 employees i work classic from a small business
00:09:05.120 right and we shook from um we get all the the red tape off let them let them be it's pure free enterprise
00:09:14.480 pure right and that's what you said just leave environmental restrictions and pollution and
00:09:18.480 safety but but but pure free and pure capital let's the pure let let them hustle right let the let
00:09:26.240 they let the entrepreneur let them make 50 million or 100 or 500 million right it's only when you get
00:09:32.080 larger right uh then companies are run by institutions and to them sometimes they have no affinity for
00:09:40.480 employees right so i think it's important that large companies uh i think the law will provide that they
00:09:50.880 get the employees will get a portion of the profits but i'm coming back to uh you know when i talk to
00:09:58.000 business people and say to frank sounds okay but i'm i'm not sure i want to i don't want to have government
00:10:05.040 telling me yeah what etc i'd say fair enough so basically i'm saying you start out with small
00:10:13.840 companies huh and i want to tell people you gotta get away from a boss attitude right boss and workers
00:10:21.680 right years ago you had masters and servants and now we have bosses and workers right some bosses are okay
00:10:29.600 right but most of the thing i'm not baby you know workers get this grundle union said then and so so we
00:10:37.280 need a culture change huh let me give you an example um i should maybe maybe go all the way back when i
00:10:47.840 when i started out in business i i'm a drill and die maker by trade i had about five thousand dollars saved
00:10:54.000 up in 57 five thousand now i guess you could buy a small farm you know it was that much right but
00:11:01.200 anyway i started out i rented a the gatehouse of standard american standards uh product the gatehouse
00:11:10.880 was more like a large garage right and i bought a few used machines on a down payment and out i went
00:11:17.760 hustling i went on the factors and i said i'm very good in solving problems if and i can't if i can't
00:11:23.680 if i can't solve the problems then you don't have to pay me but any one after one once i hired somebody
00:11:30.160 after he had about 10 people and after two years i had about 20 people after five years i had about
00:11:36.320 5 000 people after 10 years i had about 50 000 right after 15 years 100 but let me go back when i had
00:11:44.480 after two years i had 20 people i noticed my foreman was a little different so uh his name was herman
00:11:51.840 said herman what's the matter with you lately well he said he said frank i i'm thinking of uh
00:12:01.120 pretty well i will start my own business and i said well i can sympathize he was my first employee he
00:12:07.520 was the foreman right okay so i said let's talk tomorrow maybe we can find a better way anyway that
00:12:14.000 evening i was talking to myself and i asked myself if that foreman's going to leave me that would
00:12:19.760 stuff for my crowd they didn't like that the next thing was if that foreman's gonna leave me i got
00:12:25.360 to do all the work myself i liked it even less and the third reason was if i hire a new foreman and i
00:12:32.000 don't show my business is run they still get it all the work and if i show a foreman how a business
00:12:39.040 should be run after a year two years he will leave right so anyway the next day i said to my foreman i said
00:12:46.240 look why don't we open up a new factory on one third i own two thirds by the end of the year we
00:12:52.720 take pro rider we take some monies out and he said you mean it yes he actually went to a lawyer right
00:12:59.120 away wrote it down the guy was that was his business right he was hustling no more with time uh you know
00:13:06.080 and he was proud and uh i took the next foreman the next foreman the next all of a sudden
00:13:11.600 he was still a pretty young guy i had uh you know things were flowing like uh okay and then i became
00:13:19.120 philosophical and i said gee uh now only to only to form and only to manage uh uh you know uh uh
00:13:28.160 participating in the profits in ownership actually you know so i said i gotta find a way where
00:13:34.720 your employees also could participate and then i figured well maybe it should be a public company
00:13:40.960 right so which i i i got introduced to the to the the fellow which graded magnet electronics right
00:13:52.160 it's a small they were in the defense industry electronic thing yeah so i got introduced and
00:13:58.720 uh the fellow which run or started that he said look i have a certain age i would like to retire why
00:14:05.920 don't you sell your companies and mine you take away and uh which i did i was totally green when he
00:14:14.560 come down to public companies but i knew that it's easier for employees to participate right because
00:14:22.960 sometimes when you pay a small company and the worker wants to sell right it's difficult right
00:14:28.560 but if it's public you know you got the shares whatever the thing is so anyway that's what i did right
00:14:36.160 and um i yeah like i said i was very green i was still very young very green when he came down to the market
00:14:46.960 later years after i've been on the corporate governance board of the stock exchange in new york right and
00:14:52.960 i've been on yeah on many ports on universities hospitals in banks and etc etc so anyway i came i came to
00:15:05.120 to the conclusion that i want to also have the employees involved which i did right i think i put in
00:15:14.160 in the mid 80s or late 80s i put in a corporate constitution and the form was principally now corporate
00:15:22.400 constitution is we predetermined what we do with the profits so 20 percent of the profits went to the
00:15:30.080 shareholders 10 percent of the profits went to the workers over and above their wages
00:15:37.680 three percent went to management seven percent went to research research is the foundation for the future
00:15:45.600 and two percent went to charity the point i want to make the first year our profits were up about forty
00:15:55.200 percent the second day we're up about a hundred percent the third year they were up about two hundred percent
00:16:02.880 because employees were motivated yeah you're more than motivated in tangible terms you know
00:16:08.320 they're not employees and what their partners i want to get away from a boss relationship to workers huh
00:16:18.560 so but so uh you release an enormous energy right okay because they're in the front line they can't we can
00:16:27.040 make this better that better etc etc but to push back on that for a moment if it makes sense from a business
00:16:34.640 perspective why do you need to legislate it if if the market if the market reason is there why do you
00:16:40.960 need to put it in a charter in a constitution it is uh i'm um i'm saying it there is a culture change
00:16:52.720 so i'm not early on i kind of thought to him was sometimes when you try to create a charter you try to
00:17:01.120 look at every angle everything here right upside down sideways you want to get uh you want to listen
00:17:08.720 to a lot and the end that it came up actually quite you know we're a bunch of business people i respect
00:17:16.800 to say frank i don't want to have government telling me what to do okay okay so um so i'm saying i'm uh
00:17:25.920 i'm leaving it now you still have small companies below 300 people they have they pay no business
00:17:36.880 tax because they make so little so let them focus on the thing here and let them focus to build a
00:17:43.840 company when they go over the 300 then they gotta make their mind up do i then i gotta pay a percentage
00:17:55.280 of the profits to the workers so basically you create a culture right and you leave uh you know
00:18:02.640 i know logic can't they have shareholders and shareholders sometimes a day is a lifetime they say
00:18:09.200 i want to sell my share it it it will create it will be a bit of a hassle but so it's not so in essence
00:18:18.160 i'm saying look that's a great day you know if you don't want to if you don't want it then you
00:18:24.400 you don't grow or you or maybe you start another company right with uh but you cannot have control
00:18:30.480 right of two right but so when you get so the thing here you you must be you did not have to pay we
00:18:37.680 made it easy for you now if you wrote be large you make your mind up but you really create a culture
00:18:44.000 uh a thing business a woman would say i make more monies that way if i share right so it's a culture
00:18:55.280 change to get away from a boss thing to you know to do a partnership you mentioned earlier the fact
00:19:02.960 that no one is making anything in in north america now and i wanted to ask you about free trade on this
00:19:08.880 because i i think that you know for a lot of people free trade was viewed as being the the great
00:19:14.240 antidote to all of these economic challenges 30 years ago and obviously you being in the automotive
00:19:19.120 sector you've benefited from this do you still think that is the road to prosperity no i would say
00:19:25.280 fair trade huh okay trade should relate to to to do jobs huh okay and uh some countries
00:19:34.320 uh the regulations might not be as quite as tight as they should be to protect employees etc etc it should
00:19:43.440 relate to jobs okay and uh but um free trading it would be okay right it's uh um but it it it when
00:19:58.160 when you get different cultures you you might uh the competitors the playing field might not be fair at
00:20:07.600 level huh so to go back to the problems we have right now you mentioned something very important
00:20:14.160 earlier frank which was that you couldn't create another magna today do you believe that the innovative
00:20:21.360 spirit still exists in canada do you think it's still there and could be captured if you were to get
00:20:26.720 the regulations and the red tape and the bureaucracy out of the way i i think it would be there huh yeah
00:20:32.960 but we have to you sometimes people go it's an evolutionary process and ongoing right where people
00:20:42.320 became get more complacent where there's not that drive anymore right by young people etc etc
00:20:49.840 and i see yeah i i i give a lot of lectures right from harvard right across the states right across
00:20:57.760 canada right across europe right and um i always told the students the success of life can only be
00:21:06.080 measured the degree of happiness you reach but at the same time i told them let me tell you from my
00:21:11.520 experience it's a lot easier to be happy if you got some monies so the smart students would have said look
00:21:18.400 uh what do you recommend that we you know that we what should we do well i usually said uh look when
00:21:26.480 you be around 20 or in your early 20s you don't know yourself experiment a bit do something what you
00:21:34.480 really enjoy if you enjoy something you're going to be good in it and if you put in the extra effort you
00:21:42.320 could be one of the best if you be one of the best money is a byproduct but another very interesting part huh
00:21:51.120 it occurred to me the last few years because i gave a lot of lectures and
00:21:58.880 but i came to the conclusions right that universities in the united states they uh
00:22:06.000 uh i would say about uh about 70 percent of their budget comes from private industry right gab right
00:22:17.840 and here in canada it's a hundred percent under the jurisdiction of the provinces
00:22:24.800 and management doesn't want to bite the hand which meets them right because
00:22:29.680 i'm i'm doing now a lecture series right uh because universities will be the ideal place
00:22:40.720 or let me put this way what is the mandate of a university i think the mandate of a university is
00:22:48.640 to teach young people how can we have a more civilized society okay and so
00:22:56.560 um i got to know the minister of universities it's a lady and i said look i i i want to teach
00:23:09.120 well i want to lecture on or provoke the minds what would be the structure of an ideal society
00:23:18.480 okay because i i think it's not done right it's why wouldn't we talk about it what is the structure
00:23:26.560 if we have got no idea what is the structure of an ideal society how can we ever achieve that
00:23:32.880 okay i know what minimum standard should be in a civilized society and then in a civilized society
00:23:40.240 no citizen should go hungry that means there's a soup kitchen or something where anybody could get
00:23:47.680 a meal if they haven't got the money if they're hungry and everybody should have a chance to have
00:23:55.200 to have to live where there's a roof right over the head right so those are and then you get access to
00:24:02.560 medical care right but that could be done very easily right we have the army the armies is trained
00:24:10.000 if there are major disasters they come in with big tents and pigs and soup you know let the army have
00:24:16.160 soup kitchens right you know for every hundred thousand maybe you need to see it toronto has got to
00:24:21.920 them it would need about maybe 30 right indifferent because if people are hungry elderly whatever they
00:24:30.720 can't walk for miles and miles and miles it's going to be right that could be easily done but going back
00:24:37.680 why i think it it's it's it's important to have an economic chart of rights you ever heard of the golden
00:24:44.480 rule yes yes like treat others is the way you want to be treated that's not the golden rule is that the
00:24:48.480 the golden rule there's only one okay the world has always been dominated by the golden rule whereas
00:24:57.280 the gold makes the rule okay no no no that's very very serious yes i don't want to be dominated by
00:25:05.040 anyone if i feel that strong i should not be able to dominate somebody either right the question is
00:25:12.400 this how can we dismantle the chains of dominations not via violent revolution via revolution of the mind
00:25:23.280 okay man is man is actually more than a business it's a culture we call it the fair enterprise system
00:25:31.920 i'm i'm i'm for free enterprise like you know i i spent a lot of time in washington you know at one
00:25:39.680 time i had a meeting with the leader of the house with mitch mcconnell and he said mitch america did
00:25:46.800 great way at the free enterprise system we must do everything we can to preserve free enterprise
00:25:52.640 without free enterprise there's no free society but i said free enterprise got a major problem
00:25:59.520 he said what you mean well more and more capital is held by few and fewer
00:26:05.040 in nature in nature when a species does not reproduce itself another species will take over
00:26:13.920 the socialistic communistic species okay that philosophy doesn't work it's based on wealth distribution
00:26:24.560 first you gotta create the wealth otherwise there's nothing to distribute yes so in essence
00:26:31.520 the golden rule the golden rule the capitalistic system needs modifications let it be in a smaller let
00:26:39.760 it be pure free enterprise let them when it gets larger no you need you need you need you need a system
00:26:48.400 where the gold is just uh yes yes is distributed somewhat right at the same time i do say
00:26:56.880 a society which stifles its citizens in pursuit of productivity in pursuit of ingenuity or creativity
00:27:06.960 is a decaying society but this is where the small companies come in we must give them all the chances
00:27:14.400 that's the way to prove that's the way right but with magna had a chance to prove it if you share
00:27:22.800 you make so much money we could pay back to death we could nobody would go hungry we could eliminate
00:27:30.480 poverty we hear from some people in government this idea that we need to replace shareholder capitalism
00:27:38.720 with stakeholder capitalism this idea that businesses are you know accountable to communities and to the
00:27:45.200 environment and to all of these things and not just to their shareholders it doesn't sound like you
00:27:50.640 embrace that totally but it does sound like you believe there's a moral duty that businesses have
00:27:56.000 well there is yeah i mean business is a moral duty right but there is look free enterprise or the
00:28:04.720 capitalistic is it's only when it gets large it's you know the entrepreneurs are not there anymore
00:28:13.600 uh you know the call it the the creators are not there and in the end it it's mainly run by institutions
00:28:25.280 and uh and they it's different right it's not it's not a partnership anymore one of the things that
00:28:34.320 i find interesting you despite being known for your role of shepherding magna through many many years
00:28:41.520 you've also become a small business owner you talked about the farmers market we're also sitting here
00:28:46.160 in a an organic food store that you own in aurora why have you gone full circle back to small business
00:28:54.720 well i i i i've been blessed with good health and a very good mind but when you get older sometimes
00:29:04.080 you sit back and you think about it what's life all about huh i said to myself frank you've been so
00:29:13.520 blessed with a good mind can you be of greatest service to society by looking by doing different things
00:29:21.280 and i don't want to be a hypocrite right when we are younger we all hustle a bit to make some monies
00:29:29.360 that we can live in dignity huh for instance the magna i created about we had about 420 factories when
00:29:37.840 i kind of slept out in 34 different countries i could live in any one of those countries with dignity
00:29:47.040 i wanted to live here because canada is a great country i think it's the last country left where
00:29:55.920 we could create a role model for the world it's the last country left where we could i i really believe
00:30:03.680 very strongly that we can adopt an economic charter of rights the human charter of rights has to be
00:30:13.600 fortified with an economic charter of rights economic charters of rights will lead to economic democracies
00:30:21.280 and economic democracies uh the democracy by itself without that that you cannot have democracy
00:30:31.520 to a kid in the city detroit democracy the human the human child of rights so it doesn't mean anything
00:30:38.240 you're free to be hungry okay we gotta you know we gotta everything that we have a society to eliminate
00:30:45.680 poverty if workers make more money is that drives the business that drives the things so and it's not
00:30:52.480 they they have them all right so basically yes i'm saying the existing business let it be but let the new
00:31:00.320 people come up let them small let them do things let them create thousands of that thing yeah we've talked
00:31:07.200 about the responsibilities you believe should be conferred to businesses but you would also under
00:31:12.720 your ideal charter have a lot of responsibilities on government one of them is eliminating red tape
00:31:18.080 another one was balancing budgets which i thought was so incredibly important and also paying down debt
00:31:24.320 because we're told by governments that debt is inevitable but you're saying you need to start
00:31:29.040 balancing your books it's i so i basically i basically again i you uh you enter facebook people you bounce
00:31:40.880 things off how do you feel about this how do you feel about that right i um i think this is a great great
00:31:50.160 country but most of all i think it's maybe the only country left right because i'm worried on the united states
00:32:00.640 huh the poverty in inner cities is enormous okay i hope i i know some black leaders etc and we say to them
00:32:13.440 you got to be careful that you don't be suckered in a violent revolution you know i'm worried on that
00:32:20.560 okay so that kind of leaves canada europe's got totally socialistic huh it when i i'm not looking down on
00:32:28.400 that i come from a working class family i've seen the highest of the high i've seen the lowest of the low
00:32:35.680 when i arrived in canada you know i had two hundred dollars that didn't last me too long there were
00:32:43.040 times when i was hungry hungry not because i wanted to lose weight i was hungry i had no money to buy food
00:32:51.120 that leaves an impression in your soul right which is right so thereby i'm saying i've been blessed beyond
00:32:58.640 you know uh it's so um so i decided my gut feeling was to do large cars that's doesn't i came closely to
00:33:15.440 the thing here i'm doing something which doesn't really benefit society right society from time to time
00:33:23.440 we cannot ignore the evolution the evolutionary process at times we have to adjust okay you mean
00:33:33.200 when there was only you know i think there's about two billion cars on the road you know maybe 20 years
00:33:41.600 ago there was maybe a billion right you mean it did not matter that seemed to right but now it matters
00:33:48.320 because it's a non-renewable resource so i decided i i kind of was kind of worried or i could see
00:34:00.400 that pretty well all cats had allergies when i was a kid allergy we didn't know allergies right i was like
00:34:07.600 a street dog i could every he did everything and stage two diabetics right so i decided maybe i should go
00:34:15.600 into this so i i started to really get involved in agriculture i think deep down basically i was
00:34:22.960 was a bit of a farmer right okay and the more i got into it the more i could see this chemical jungle
00:34:32.720 you know when we realize that about 95 percent of the food eaten is comes from industrial farms
00:34:42.480 farms on industrial farms you see no more eagles fly why there's no more rabbits there's no more
00:34:51.120 pheasants we poison everything the fungicide the pesticide we spray kills everything basically we poison the
00:34:59.360 kids huh okay so one of my thing would be i want to see an economic chart of rights
00:35:07.280 and also where we have rights there's also responsibilities right the economic chart of
00:35:14.320 rights for instance governments can't have that huh yeah okay but going back quickly on the on the
00:35:22.960 on the on the agriculture right my my mandate or my main aim would be no canadian kids should go to
00:35:31.280 school hungry that means breakfast gotta be served no canadian kid should leave the school hungry that
00:35:38.560 means lunches gotta be served and by law it would say that would have to be organic but that's a major
00:35:47.840 problem huh years ago family farms were the backbone of our country of canada well all other countries a
00:35:56.960 country which could feed itself never had a problem family farms are practically on welfare
00:36:04.880 kids of family farmers say mom dad i don't want to be a farmer i don't want to be in welfare
00:36:11.920 it's a major major neglect we need canada needs a family farm trust okay okay so it's um
00:36:22.320 um so we so the one thing is so i i kept thinking can i create something which has nothing to do with
00:36:32.880 politics okay and uh can i create and it does not solve you cannot solve things by pointing fingers
00:36:43.120 who's fault it is huh okay um so when you take a look that our just the interest payments right
00:36:53.840 there were 150 million dollars a day who's getting this money and that's money spent on nothing it goes
00:36:59.520 to the banks a white variety we don't know quite the way it goes to right but it's but here's the goal
00:37:07.600 makes the rule yes okay we don't okay years ago you could see the king had or the king had a castle up
00:37:17.360 on the hill when he taxed the farmers too much he had revolutions you don't see the kings anymore it
00:37:23.040 might be in hawaii might be in beverly hills might be in monaco might be okay so we have to but again
00:37:31.120 we have we need a revolution of the mind and not a destructive revolution and i do not blame because
00:37:40.320 you go to an evolutionary process those were the rules at the time and part of
00:37:47.440 the civilization be improved that's an evolutionary process right so i was thinking of what can i be of
00:37:58.720 service to the country can i grace can i create something where conservatives will buy in liberals
00:38:06.320 ndp greens and so i've done a seven point program right i give you i get your copy then right uh i
00:38:14.560 yeah we have copies but let me just quickly what the thing is um you don't solve anything by pointing
00:38:22.240 fingers you don't solve anything by coming in with a chainsaw so basically i'm saying
00:38:28.400 it's crucial it's very important that we eliminate our debt let's have a 20-year program
00:38:36.880 you know with a small percentage to start out with and slowly nobody could say a 20-year program
00:38:42.560 is to change our program right and let's reduce that right then secondly we gotta reduce the bureaucracy
00:38:51.600 and again i'm not blaming the democracy i'm blaming the system in the civilized society every citizen
00:39:00.480 should have the right to find a job whatever the openings are okay but we can't but how can we how
00:39:08.000 could be civil how can we handle that in a civilized way nobody would be laid off of the bureaucrat but
00:39:14.720 they'd be hiring freeze when they retire you do not till you reach okay and even if you reach 50
00:39:22.880 percent it's still a 100 to 200 more than we had 45 years ago but that would be enormously helpful
00:39:30.080 right to reduce the bureaucracy thirdly we gotta have a black and white tax system you see the big
00:39:39.600 book over there yep it's the dax code right i look occasionally if it's not so serious you could really
00:39:47.040 laugh right because there's thousands of paragraphs in there they one is more convoluted than the other
00:39:55.280 it's so convoluted it it serves special interest groups okay so that need either black and white
00:40:05.120 basically you have an income tax let's say 100 000 is tax free and then every two or three thousand it
00:40:12.320 climbs one percent right up to a million a million would be fifty percent but now you could say middle
00:40:22.080 classes about two hundred thousand there would not be much tax but when you get up huh it pays more
00:40:29.360 and there's so many loopholes where the very thing here right where they have to pay more taxes right
00:40:36.080 yes that's what rosie wealth did huh rosie wealth the the president of the united states said look we want
00:40:43.360 to get things going somebody's got to pay for it i want you to i'm gonna pay if you know if if i don't pay
00:40:51.520 for it it will lead to socialism and communist and in communist philosophies okay so that is um i
00:41:00.400 think it's very important to understand right so point one eliminated that point two reduced it should
00:41:08.880 be a percentage of the gdp right okay then a simplified tax system and then the fourth point is
00:41:19.440 to have small business to have small business pure free enterprise capitalist to really
00:41:26.720 okay well we create things in five years when you reach you go to when the small business reaches that
00:41:35.840 it's it's a cultural uh evolution right then you can decide you want to be lot and you got to share
00:41:44.720 okay if you okay so that is the fifth point the sixth point is high school should enter grade 10
00:41:55.120 grade 11 grade 12 we got to teach our kids some trade we have two years let's say half a year for each four
00:42:03.680 trades that day that would be that'd be a great service it'd be great for everyone for everyone
00:42:10.720 for everyone you still can go to university right after grade 12 or whatever let it be
00:42:17.840 but i i think i think you teach people you teach young kids
00:42:23.360 uh where to have an affinity what would they like to do right okay that would be and the seventh point is
00:42:33.680 what i mentioned before no kid should go to school hungry to school hungry breakfast got to be served
00:42:41.920 no canadian kid should leave the school hundred even its lunches got to be served and below that would
00:42:47.440 have to be organic that's the simple it's a simple program nobody could say that's got any do with
00:42:54.800 politics and and i hope i can persuade uh sort of uh um staunch conservatives and liberals and ndps
00:43:07.040 and the thing for the love of the country let's let's endorse that program just in in closing frank
00:43:15.120 let's say you get your economic charter today what does canada look like in 50 years
00:43:22.960 i would say i would say in about 10 years canada is would be the first country in the world with an
00:43:30.800 economic charter of rights because there's not a simple argument you could make why we shouldn't have
00:43:39.840 one but what does that do for the country i'm just saying what the country what's the vision for canada
00:43:46.080 we could eliminate poverty there'd be no poverty let everybody choose the road to happiness someone
00:43:53.600 but just fine do but basically it would be uh in a civilized country i think you should accumulate
00:44:06.880 when you work for 20 years or 30 years that if you come that you have call it a small house or condo
00:44:14.080 right and enough monies that you could live off the interest and do whatever makes you happy okay
00:44:21.680 so and i and i demonstrated with you with the thing you know i created up to 100 to 170 000 employees
00:44:34.880 in different countries it's the same you can create the same condition it doesn't matter what country it
00:44:42.880 is they understand profits they understand fairness okay i do
00:44:48.240 i do i had a number of of principles or rules i put in a place right i had i created hotlines
00:45:03.840 because when you especially when you get larger you you you might be missing things so basically
00:45:10.800 i had hotlines where employees don't have to give a name and they call a number and say look this is
00:45:20.320 there's discrimination there's corruption there's guys uh dodged the bums of women whatever right
00:45:30.560 we have hotlines huh so we when i introduced the hotlines the manager were unhappy they said are you spying on
00:45:38.480 us and now they say that's a great help because we don't now we can we can flush things out huh
00:45:46.640 and the second thing i created a system where we audited the human capital
00:45:54.160 that is you know i also tried to leave the company we not to not to go with 200 people
00:46:02.000 so people don't become a number yes okay so i had i had an audit committee right we had a bunch of day
00:46:11.680 when you have 400 we had maybe 10 special teams they would go well let's say the factory's got 200
00:46:19.040 employees they came in with 200 envelopes and there was a question there within the thing and you had to
00:46:25.600 cross it to cross it off right discrimination unfairness this like that though they collected 200 no names
00:46:34.880 but we got the temperature of the factory okay so it it's it's a culture changer it's a thing here
00:46:43.760 you gotta um employers would know if it's a fake heat thing or a thing it's got to be the real thing
00:46:52.320 and the real thing will make everybody more monies everybody you know we could eliminate poverty and
00:47:00.480 canada because you know we under perhaps the most dangerous times in history because
00:47:12.000 who's dominating the world right up to now the united states that huh did a reasonable job they had
00:47:19.200 reasonable democracies they had uh but um more and more gold is helped by few and fewer huh the united
00:47:30.640 states says they have very good statistics about two percent hold about 60 percent of the assets huh that's
00:47:38.560 the capitalistic system cannot will not you know and we gotta for small business pure capitalistic
00:47:46.800 pure free enterprise pure freedom okay so anyway i have that program i give you a copy then that you
00:47:55.440 can question me and and i i do hope that i make progress with universities where they will discuss you
00:48:03.600 know what is this what is this what structure should should we have to have an ideal society because
00:48:10.720 they have auditoriums they can invite a lot of successful people in your society cannot ignore the arts
00:48:19.120 you know the sports you know but we got a greater value system absolutely gotta come back to
00:48:27.600 what what are our values huh frank stronic thank you very much okay great thanks for listening to the
00:48:34.320 andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news