The Current - Frank Stronach responds to sexual assault allegations

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach is facing allegations of sexual assault from 13 women, spanning decades. The Fifth Estate’s Mark Kelley spoke to some of those women, and put the allegations to S...tronach in exclusive one-on-one interviews.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.
Starting point is 00:00:25 On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. It's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie. That is how Frank Stronach, Canadian billionaire and once CEO of the auto parts empire Magna, responded to CBC's Mark Kelly when he agreed to do an interview with the Fifth Estate this summer. Stronach is facing 18 sex crime charges, which involve 13 women that span five decades back to 1977. Allegations which Stronach repeatedly denies and have not been tried in court.
Starting point is 00:01:03 The Fifth Estate not only investigated the allegations and spoke to women who detail what they call predatory work environments, but has taken the claims directly to Frank Stronach in two exclusive one-on-one interviews. Their documentary airs tonight on CBC Television at 9 p.m. And a warning, this conversation contains mature subject matter, including references to sexual assault. Mark Kelly is the co-host of CBC's Fifth Estate, and he's with me here in studio.
Starting point is 00:01:28 Mark, good morning. Good morning, Peter. So let's start with the basics. Remind me who Frank Stronach is. Yeah, Frank Stronach is one of these guys with this incredible rags-to-riches story that we love, everybody loves. Comes to Canada as an immigrant from Austria in the 50s. He starts a little tool and dye operation out of a rented garage in Midtown Toronto. And from that, turns it into Magna, the auto parts giant that at one point had 180,000 employees working in 37 different countries, factories in
Starting point is 00:01:59 37 different countries. This was a guy that when he was bought out of Magna in 2010, they had annual sales of around $29 billion a year. $29 billion a year started out of a garage. So, you know, incredible business success that is really unparalleled in a Canadian perspective. And this is a guy who's in the order of Canada. He's in the U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame. He hung around with presidents and prime ministers. He was, you know, he was, he raised thoroughbreds. He owned racetracks. We get a picture of him in the Queen of England here at the Queen's Plate from years ago. I mean, this is a guy, it's like whatever Frank Stronach wanted, Frank Stronach got until now where he's got himself into a world of trouble. So you interviewed him twice in this piece. How did that come together?
Starting point is 00:02:50 You know, the first criminal charges against him were made public in June, and the Fifth Estate started looking into the story. I wasn't even assigned to the story at that point. And then it was on the Canada Day long weekend, and I'm away with some friends, and a one-line email lands in my inbox that says, Frank Stronach wants to connect with you. I thought it was a joke. Right. I don't know Frank Stronach. I've never met Frank Stronach.
Starting point is 00:03:12 I've never interviewed Frank Stronach. I ignored it. Went back to it the next day, and I said, yeah, I'm a journalist. They said the curiosity got the best of me. I called the woman who had sent this email, and I said, who are you? She says, I work with Frank Stronach. He wants to talk to you. I said, why does he want to talk to me? He says, well, you call him, you talk to him yourself. I call him, he picks up. He says, look, I've seen
Starting point is 00:03:32 you on television. I trust you and I want you to tell my story. And there began a relationship, if you will, back and forth. I met with him a couple of times. We talked on the phone and I said, we'll sit down and have this interview. And I said, so what is your story? He says, well, I want the opportunity to explain who I am and the kind of person I am. So the first time I interviewed him was August 6th this year. And I asked him then about the serious charges. At that time, we're just, well, just, we're 10 women, 13 charges. Here's what he had to say. Frank, excuse me. One of the biggest issues you now are facing are very serious legal charges that have been leveled against you. 13 charges, and you know the list. Attempted race, sexual assault, forcible confinement. These are very, very serious charges.
Starting point is 00:04:22 You will be 92 next month. How do you respond to these charges? I haven't done anything wrong. And we have a lot of data which totally, you know, will prove that those things are lies. Okay, but I cannot get into it. But I feel sorry for the woman which makes those charges. And Stronach would go on about, you know, feeling sorry for the women.
Starting point is 00:04:46 He says some of these women he believes are in it for the money. Some of these women he believes are disgruntled employees. Some of these women he believes are in this conspiracy to ruin his name and his reputation. And that's the position he took in our first interview. And that's the position he maintains to this day. Now, the Fifth Estate starts digging into this. I've seen you guys work. This investigation leads in a whole bunch of
Starting point is 00:05:08 directions. The investigation reveals details about this Toronto bar in the 1980s called Rooney's. What did you learn about it and its connection to Frank's Top? Well, Frank Stronach was co-owner of this bar, Nightclub Rooney's in Toronto. And this was a place, I guess, to see and be seen. I'd never heard of it,
Starting point is 00:05:26 didn't grow up in Toronto, but it was a place that was where the rich and the famous would hang out. And it was a place where we were told there was always a table reserved for Frank. And on that table, there was always plenty of bottles of Dom Perignon because that was his go-to drink. And there was always plenty of women that would be sitting around there. So that was the scene that, uh, was set and that there were a lot of VIPs, but the biggest VIP of them all was Stronic himself, who was a regular there. But then we would learn the dark overtones connected to that bar Rooney's. Now you, you end up speaking, you end up speaking to one of the women
Starting point is 00:06:05 on the charge sheet who you refer to as Lee. What did you learn from her? Yeah, we're protecting her identity. She's also protected by a court-ordered publication ban because she's one of the women who's part of this criminal case against Stronach. She was 20 years old, a horse groomer in 1980, working for Frank Stronach at his stables up in Aurora.
Starting point is 00:06:25 And, you know, she describes, she didn't even know who the guy was when the first time she saw him. She was told he's the guy who owns the place. He's the guy who owns the horses. So she was about to turn 21 and a couple of other stable hands said, hey, let's go to Rooney's because because we work for Stronach, we think we're going to get a discount. So she goes there to celebrate the oncoming 21st birthday, and then she describes a very uncomfortable situation that happens when Stronach arrives in the bar. And just a caution to the listeners, this clip contains a graphic description of an alleged sexual assault.
Starting point is 00:07:01 Suddenly Frank comes walking around this barricade that was beside the table. He's got a bottle of champagne in his hand, and he came up to the table, and I said, Oh, I don't drink. And he said, Oh, you know, you can't brush that off. Next thing I know, I'm out on the dance floor, and he's holding me really, really tight. And I was trying to get loose,
Starting point is 00:07:32 and then he shoves up my skirt, and he punctures my pantyhose, and he sticks his fingers right inside of me. Now, Lee was shocked because as she looked around, she said the bar was full and people didn't seem to be paying any attention. She would later quit her job. She felt she couldn't go back after that encounter with Frank Stronach. And as she said, that night the fire was stolen from her. It's tough to listen to.
Starting point is 00:08:02 Yeah. You learn about another woman who also worked for Frank Stronach and also had an encounter at Rooney's. Tell us about Jane Boone. Yeah, and it's a similar story. And that's, Peter, one of the things that started coming out with our investigation is we noticed that there was a bit of a pattern
Starting point is 00:08:17 or what some would call a predatory pattern. So Jane Boone was 18 years old when she first got a job as a co-op student working at Magna. And her second year when she was 19, she tells a story about going to a shareholders meeting and then runs into Stronic who said, come with me for dinner. And then we're going to go for a party at Rooney's afterwards. And she's there and she's being wined and dined in front of, you know, the premier, former premier of Ontario, the big wigs of the business world who are sitting on the board of directors. And then she realized at some point, as he's filling her glass full of wine and champagne, as she says, she realized she'd been caught in a trap.
Starting point is 00:08:57 We went out on the dance floor and he was physical. It was just, just kind of crazy. And he was physical. It was just kind of crazy. And it's at this moment that Stronach announces that I've had too much to drink, that he's going to take me to the guest house, and that the driver should take my car to the guest house. And then he turned to me and said, Jane, give him your keys.
Starting point is 00:09:27 It dawned on me that I'd been caught in a trap. Typically at a corporate event, if some junior staffer is intoxicated, somebody gives them a taxi to go home, they get escorted to a hotel. They don't get driven 30 miles north of Toronto to an isolated guest house by the CEO. Jane would describe what happened afterwards, a sexual encounter that she says wasn't illegal, as she wrote about it later in an op-ed in the Globe and Mail. She said it wasn't rape, but it wasn't right. And she too would also, she was an aspiring automotive engineer, she would quit that and go into her career in a completely different direction
Starting point is 00:10:04 after that encounter with Frank Stronach. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:10:40 So this all begins with somebody reaching out to you saying, Frank wants to talk. He wants to tell you sort of who he is. That sends you off down this investigation. You find out all this, and you go back to interview Frank later this summer with these new allegations in hand. Where did you meet him, and what did he say about Rooney's? Yeah, we met him the first time, as I mentioned, we talked to him in August, but our investigation continued after that initial interview, and we started finding more revelations. So Rooney's, for example, we wanted to ask him.
Starting point is 00:11:05 I mean, it was called, you know, Jane Boone would describe this place as a hunting ground for him to take women and then take them to a second location for unwanted sex. So I asked him. We were able to meet him at his stables. Of course, he still raises thoroughbreds. So we went to his stables in Aurora on the family compound north of Toronto. And I began our conversation, our second conversation with him in the stables, asking him about Rooney's.
Starting point is 00:11:34 It was a happy place. There's no thing here, right? OK, we had lineups. But we've spoken to some people, Frank, who called it a hunting ground. It was a place where you would go to get women and then you would take women from there afterwards to have sex with them. This is absolutely where some make statements. It's absolutely wrong. And this is where Stronach continues to profess his innocence. And yet at the same time, and we'd heard from a third woman who would also describe an encounter. She went to Rooney's, she met Stronach. He took her back to a second location where she says that she was sexually assaulted. Again, he categorically denies this claim.
Starting point is 00:12:16 Your investigation brings you more information about Lee. What happened after Rooney's? Did she end up talking to the police? Yeah, because she too, after her encounter on the dance floor with Stronach is taken to a second location where she says that she was sexually assaulted by him. It would take her until 2015. So we're talking about 25 years for her to be able to go back to 35 years rather for her to go to police. She said, look, nobody's going to believe me. I was shoveling manure for a living. People are going to believe that Frank Stronach wanted to have sex with me. But she says that she had to deal with the fact that she was a survivor of what she felt was the sexual assault that she
Starting point is 00:12:56 lived with. She needed to tell police about it. So she finally found the courage in 2015 to meet Toronto police. And this is how she remembers that experience. It was intimidating. It was really intimidating. I was ready to tell my story, but they kept pushing me. It started to feel like an interrogation. I started to feel like I wasn't being believed. And to that end, Peter, she says she never heard back from the investigating officers. She never got a call back.
Starting point is 00:13:29 She never got an email. She said she got nothing. We contacted the Toronto police to ask them about that. They said because it's an ongoing investigation and before the courts, they can't comment on that. In your investigation, you find out more about some of the more recent claims on the charge sheet and sort of a culture of fear by women who have worked for Stronach more recently. What did you hear there? Yeah, we talked to a woman named JJ Wright, and she was a Magna Golf Club employee back in 2007.
Starting point is 00:13:56 And she said one of the first things that she was told when she worked there was steer clear of the boss, the boss being, of course, Frank Stronach. there was steer clear of the boss, boss being, of course, Frank Stronach. And that was an open secret. She said that there was predatory behavior and that there were non-disclosure agreements that were being signed with employees after unwanted encounters with Frank Stronach. Now, Frank also, he's operating a restaurant in Aurora right now. So we wanted to talk to some of the employees that have worked there or are still working with them there. And we were able to speak with three different former employees who described experiences, what they called an uncomfortable work environment and predatory behavior that they were living in a culture of fear working in this restaurant. And we have also protected their identity because they were concerned about retaliation, possible retaliation for Instronic. But here's what one employee told us. I mean, everybody's afraid of Frank, right?
Starting point is 00:14:53 Like, he can pay off anyone he wants. So it's, having worked for him, you learn the things he gets away with, and everybody's afraid of it, you know? I mean, it's interesting, Peter, talking to this one employee. She would eventually leave her job. She had no uncomfortable or inappropriate encounter with Frank Stronach, and yet when she left her job at that restaurant, she was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement not to talk about her experiences in that restaurant.
Starting point is 00:15:21 It's very telling. Not very typical of the restaurant industry. No, sir. What else did you learn? From the, like you meet with these former employees of Frank's Aurora Restaurant that you spoke to this summer. What else did you learn? Yeah, I mean, things got darker.
Starting point is 00:15:33 I mean, we heard a story, we heard several stories and we know that at least two of the former employees went to police with their complaints and that have resulted in two more criminal charges against Stronach. We heard a story about Stronach saying that he wanted to take one of the employees out for dinner, saying that we wanted to discuss job opportunities, possible promotion, and takes that person instead to the restaurant, instead to a parking lot,
Starting point is 00:15:58 where he made unwanted sexual advances on this woman. She felt she was trapped in the car. She finally broke free, ran back into the restaurant where she told people what had happened and would later quit. Now, her complaint did not result in criminal charges, but this was this culture of fear that said that the employees were working under there. So you reach out to all these people. Did you find anyone that came forward to sort of speak in support of Frank Stronach? Well, this is where a curious story gets more curious, Peter. I mean, as I mentioned at the outset,
Starting point is 00:16:30 here's a guy who is a friend of the rich and famous presidents and prime ministers who, you know, had incredible Rolodex. And then suddenly, when these criminal charges start to surface, and they've come out in three waves, it started at five, they've grown to 18, who knows, there could be more down the road. But and yet here's in the situation and virtually no one is coming to his defense. I mean, the Fifth Estate contacted more than 40 people with a simple ask, we'd like to talk to you about Frank Stronach. People that had worked with him over the decades, people worked with him, whether it was in the race industry, you know, he ran for parliament in Austria, in his native Austria at one point, we were contacting people in Austria, contacting people who worked at Magna.
Starting point is 00:17:12 And few people would even return an email, let alone talk to us on background on the phone, let alone come in front of a camera. A couple of people did, to their credit, because we wanted to hear more about the man, the full story of Frank Stronach. But that to us became, you know, very interesting component of this, of how he is now increasingly isolated. And I'll use the case of his own daughter, Belinda Stronach, well-known, I'm sure, to a lot of listeners. She's a former member of parliament, was elected as a Tory, crossed the floor to the Liberals quite famously. She was on the Magna Board of Directors. She is still working with her father, Frank Stronach. When she was asked to comment on this situation, she put out a terse one-line statement saying, the allegations against my father, Frank Stronach, are disturbing. I can't
Starting point is 00:18:05 comment further because it's before the courts. Full stop. So, you know, if you want to talk about somebody trying to come to the defense, there was no, look, I know my father. I know the kind of person he is. He would never do something like this. Give the man his day in court, whatever it may be. It's just that. So I find that in the time that I've been talking to Frank Stronach, and we've had two interviews, we've talked several times on the phone, an increasingly portrait has evolved of a man who now finds himself alone. He's alone, he's fighting for his name, he's fighting for his reputation. He insists that he needs to have his day in court to be able to prove that these allegations are, as he claims, false. But he's doing that with very little support.
Starting point is 00:18:51 He's 92 years old. He's running his restaurant north of Toronto. He's got a little electronic car and bike business that he's working on that he thinks one day will be the future of transportation. I went to meet him up there. There was one employee on the floor. So here was a guy who used to run, you know, Magna with 170,000 plus employees who now finds himself really increasingly isolated on this island waiting for his day in court. You mentioned Magna.
Starting point is 00:19:21 He built that company. It is still sort of so associated with his name. Has the company itself commented on these allegations? Yeah. And I think that's the company's concern right now is that it's so associated with the name Frank Stronach. And when you go up to Aurora, I mean, this is the town that Frank Stronach built. The recreation center is the Stronach Recreation Center. And besides Stronach Park, and it's on Stronach Boulevard, and there you've got an on Stronach Boulevard, you find you've got an on Stronach Boulevard, you find the head offices of Magna.
Starting point is 00:19:47 So Magna has now launched their own internal investigation into his time. He was bought out in 2010. He left his chairman in 2012. They want to look to see if there are any records possibly of sexual misconduct while he was working there. But so they have said to us in investigation, there are no criminal or civil allegations against Magna. As we've stated before,
Starting point is 00:20:08 the allegations made against Mr. Stronach are alarming. And if proven true, completely contradict Magna's core values and beliefs. So they too are trying to put as much distance between them and him, the guy who built the empire. Mark, it's a powerful piece.
Starting point is 00:20:25 It's an important piece. Thanks for talking to us about it. And I hope people tune in to watch it tonight. Thanks, Peter. Mark Kelly is a co-host of the CBC's Fifth Estate. Their investigation, Frank Stronach, Power and Silence, airs tonight at nine o'clock on CBC television, Gem and YouTube.
Starting point is 00:20:38 Support is available for anyone who's been sexually abused. Resources for family and children are available through the Canadian Center for Child Protection. You can also access crisis lines and local support services through the Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.

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