Who’s Watching Out for Our Kids?

A Message from the Founder

‘I have always said that I’ve been blessed with good health, good fortune, and a good mind. Over the course of my life, I have endured poverty and hardship. I have also reached the highest heights. In my early 20s, I left my homeland in Austria and immigrated to Canada.

My first job was washing dishes and peeling potatoes in the basement of a hospital. After several years in Canada, I scraped together enough money to open a small tool shop in a rented garage in Toronto. I was able to turn my one-man tool shop into one of the world’s largest and most successful automotive parts suppliers, Magna International Inc., a company with over 150,000 employees worldwide and over $40 billion in annual sales.

In my early 70s, what I regard as the height of my career, I began to count my blessing and analyze priorities in life. When we are young and starting out, we work hard to make enough money so that we can provide for our families and live in dignity when we eventually retire. And in the process of trying to make a living, we sometimes lose focus on the real priorities in life.

Health: The Number One Priority in Life

I am a great believer that the number one priority in life, the one that stands above all others, is to stay healthy. When we become sick and weakened by illness, most of us would give everything we own for a chance to be healthy again. That’s why I decided to go into agriculture and produce food without chemicals. Many of the large industrial farms throughout Canada and the United States apply massive amounts of chemicals to their crops and orchards to prevent them from being destroyed by insects. That’s why just about every kid these days has food allergies.

The question is how do we minimize our children’s exposure to harmful chemicals and keep them healthy? I believe the best way that we as a country can do this is through several specific measures that promote healthy eating and natural foods, specifically: providing nutritious organic food to all Canadian children reconnecting children with nature and agricultural education, promoting, preserving, and protecting organic farmers. We are inviting people who share that philosophy to join our organication by becoming a member and participating in our efforts to spread the message of a healthy lifestyle build around a diet or organic, all-natural foods. 

—Frank Stronach