Finally, Belinda Stronach is unscripted.
When she was in the federal government, first as a Tory MP and then as a Liberal, after she famously walked across the floor and was rewarded with a position as Minister of Human Resources in Paul Martin's government, she often gave interviews that had the ring of a memo note.
As an executive, trained in her father's automotive parts company, Magna International, there was a polished, practised air about her that gave her an inscrutable, creaseless exterior - the Belinda Botox factor, as I once called it.
It was through her high-profile men - ex-husbands Don Walker, co-chief executive of Magna, and Johann Olav Koss, Norwegian speed-skating legend, and ex-boyfriends Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, and Tie Domi, the hockey star - that people often felt they got a glimpse of who she really was. Which may partly explain the fascination with her dating life.
But now she sits across from me, chatting about her daily yoga routine and a recent skiing accident in which she tore ligaments in her knee and needed surgery, as if she's catching up with a friend over tea.
In the spring of 2007, Ms. Stronach was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 40. As a cancer survivor, she will host a fundraising event for Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto on May 20 to support the creation of a comprehensive Breast Cancer Research Centre that will be the largest in the country. It's due to open next year. Featuring a concert by Sheryl Crow, also a breast-cancer survivor, the event aims to raise $300,000 toward the centre's $27-million goal.
It is called Live to Tell, and Ms. Stronach clearly takes its imperative seriously.
"I do remember a moment where I was standing in the shower, thinking: 'Shit. I'm one lucky person because I have a second chance here in many ways.' No one wants to have a mastectomy. It is not easy to lose a breast. But I constantly thought, 'Okay, you know the really good part here is I don't have invasive cancer. Yes, losing a breast is difficult [but] I just have to be logical about it and go through it and make the best possible decision I can.' "
Her pep talk in the shower came in the early summer of 2007. She was lucky the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes, but after having two lumps removed from her breast she was told she would need another lumpectomy and radiation, or a mastectomy. She opted for the latter. Some of her cancer treatment took place at Sunnybrook. For the mastectomy and breast reconstruction, she travelled to California and paid for the procedure from her own pocket. (Ms. Stronach has also donated $1-million and pledged to raise another million for the creation of an academic chair in breast-cancer reconstructive surgery at the University of Toronto.
Her experience of the disease has changed her, she says. That much is obvious just by looking at her.
She exudes a palpable sense of calm. Always fit, she is leaner than she was before her bout with cancer, thanks in part to the vegan diet she now follows. It's as if she'd reduced herself to what's essential, in body and spirit and attitude. Dressed in jeans and a long, thick sweater, she doesn't look as if she is trying to be anyone other than herself.
"The tough part is how much of yourself do you want to reveal and what's appropriate," she says when asked how she handled the disease as a public person. "And you have to determine your own comfort level. The choice to keep my nipple, for example. There's nothing to be ashamed about being open. It's part of life, part of the human body. It should be discussed if it could lead to better choices for women.
