Belinda Stronach was the Liberal Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal in the government under Paul Martin.
Stronach famously crossed the floor to the Liberals from the Conservative benches in 2005 saving the Martin government from defeat in the House of Commons.
Prior to this, Belinda Stronach was a contestant for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2004, a contest ultimately won by Stephen Harper.
Stronach is an heir the Stronach family fortune which was estimated to be in the range of $3.12 billion as of 2013. She is the daughter of Frank Stronach, founder of Magna International, an autoparts company.
She is currently the CEO of the Stronach Group which is a entertainment and horse-racing company. The company is also known as 1/ST.
Today, Bill Casey made it official. He is the first Tory MP to publicly endorse Belinda Stronach. Casey says that Stronach’s plan for economic growth and job creation were particularly influencing factors in his decision to support her.
Congrats Belinda.
Oh and why does Stronach’s name always have to be tagged with “millionaire former CEO”? Do we keep hearing about how rich Paul Martin is?
I travelled to Ottawa from Kingston today to attend the Belinda Stronach speech at Chateau Laurier, one block east of parliament hill. I met conservatives of every type at the function; supporters of Stephen Harper, supporters of Tony Clement and of course mostly Belinda Stronach supporters.
I also met two guys with whom I went to Queen’s. Both are hill staffers and were out to see what all of this “Belindamania” talk is about.
Belinda Stronach’s speech was a great improvement from her launch speech that I saw just one week ago. She started out with an anecdote about her son’s advice before her launch that day. “Don’t trip” and she expressed proudly that she didn’t trip acknowledging that while she didn’t fall flat in her political debut, it wasn’t without its obstacles. Indeed, she acknowledged to the crowd of supporters tonight that “I’m not a professional prolecision…” to which the crowd cheered. Somewhat humbled she corrected herself, “I’m not a professional politician” to which the crowd cheered again. Belinda Stronach also declared her position on senate reform. Stronach believes that senators should be elected and that as prime minister she will discuss, with the premiers and the provinces/territories, what would consist of a fair balanced upper house. She reiterated her stance against the federal gun registry, which has cost this country over $1 Billion. This likely pleased Tory MP Bill Casey who started the website gunregistry.ca. The website is a critical look at the wasteful federal programme. As always, Stronach also restated her stance on creating a more competitive Canada through economic reform.
After Belinda Stronach’s speech she worked the room and was surrounded by a hoard of cameras and well-wishers. The mass of people seemed to have a life of it’s own as Stronach led it through the ballroom shaking hands with as many supporters as possible. I instead wandered around the less congested perimeter of the room and met some other students. We discussed our common enthusiasm about the Stronach campaign. Belinda then exited the room with her senior team.
After a speech comes a press conference so I spotted the open room where the cameras were setting up. I set myself up behind the bank of cameras, just behind the reporters and I stood with the boom-mic operators who were recording the reporters’ questions. Interesting, I found myself in the media scrum behind the stage. I actually could have asked a question myself!
CTV’s Roger Smith asked Belinda whether or not she was buying up all of the organizers in Quebec to which she answered that all of the campaigns have paid and unpaid volunteers and that the salary figure that Smith quoted was grossly exaggerated. Later on, Smith asked Stronach a somewhat cynical question “Have you ever heard any of Paul Martin’s speeches?” When Stronach ignored the question, Smith yelled back “Obviously not!” Bizarre… I thought that reporters were supposed to report the news instead of chide the candidates. Later on CTV Newsnet, I read the headline “Stronach takes hits over Quebec campaign”. It seems that while Belinda answered Smith’s question adequately, what is newsworthy to CTV is that Smith asked her the question and thought that he did some damage.
After the press conference, after most of the supporters and press had cleared out, I hung around and met some more of the campaign staff, most of whom are either slightly younger or slightly younger than me. The youth team on Belinda Stronach’s campaign is likely a key factor helping her take a fresh approach to the leadership race. I was chatting with Belinda’s press secretary when she asked, “Do you want to meet her?”.
So, I got to meet Belinda Stronach and we chatted for a little while and I got my photo-op. I thanked her for what she’s doing for youth involvement in federal politics. I also told her that we’re going to rally Queen’s around her campaign.
She also told me something very exciting and encouraging about Kingston and the Islands. But that will have to wait for another day…
I hear that the Ontario PC policy convention this weekend was quite busy. While Ontario Tory policy was discussed, the convention provided a showcase for the three candidates vying for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Tony Clement, Belinda Stronach and Stephen Harper all put on hospitality suites to woo the attending members of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
Some putative policies were underlined by the three leadership hopefuls. Tony Clement declared that he believes that capital punishment should be an option for extreme cases.
“My personal view is that in the case of serial killers and murderers of police officers, for instance, that it would be appropriate in those circumstances”. — Tony Clement
On the same issue, Belinda Stronach declared “I’m against the death penalty”.
Furthermore, the 37 year-old mother of two voiced her concern that women are underrepresented in parliament. Stronach explained that women make-up only 20% of the federal legislature. Meanwhile she criticized the media for their focus on image. While the media’s focus doesn’t bother her, she worried that it may discourage other women from running for office.
“It should be about the ideas, not necessarily about the shoes you’re wearing. We should reflect on how other young women would feel about the focus on the clothes and the shoes” — Belinda Stronach
Stephen Harper, Belinda Stronach and Tony Clement were all active friday night as they hosted party members, yet Harper did not campaign on Saturday at the convention.
