Frank Stronach has had wild visions before -- but never one quite like this.
This improbable dream involves airlifting evacuees from the devastation of New Orleans to the pampered world of Palm Beach, Fla. -- a vision that involves rich American whites from gated communities opening up to desperately poor American blacks and even includes the construction of a new mobile-home community in Louisiana for more than 300 victims of hurricane Katrina.
And so far, he's pulling it off.
But then, Frank Stronach once dreamed he could make a better life in Canada than his native Austria could give, and he made it happen to a point where the young man who arrived with $40 in his pocket now regularly pockets more than $50-million in salary as the chairman of Ontario-based Magna International, the $20-billion automobile parts giant he built from scratch.
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He once had a vision that he would live to be 150, and today, as he turns 73, is almost half way there -- about the same point he expects to reach some time this morning on his latest wild scheme.
At that point, the final plane will touch down at Palm Beach International Airport, bringing in the last group of evacuees selected by FEMA and the American Red Cross.
This will bring the total to approximately 300, although the number may yet be increased to 400, and all will be given medical attention and new clothes courtesy of Palm Beach residents, and then taken to Magna's new training facilities at nearby Palm Meadows. There they will be housed in facilities intended for grooms and thoroughbred trainers, fed at a brand-new state-of-the-art cafeteria and, some time within the next two months, returned to Louisiana to live in a 240-hectare trailer park yet to be built.
Mr. Stronach has committed approximately $3-million to the rescue effort, although costs at the moment are purely guesswork. A suitable location for the mobile homes that will be sent from Canada has not been decided and, Mr. Stronach says, he will let the evacuees have significant say in where they go, or whether they even wish to stay together.
Last Thursday, Mr. Stronach decided he could no longer wait for slow governments and large organizations to act on the tragedy unfolding along the Gulf Coast. He knew from his own life experience what it was like to be desperately poor and hungry -- "Those things are burned right into the soul" -- but could only imagine the danger that the survivors were facing .
"If you have feelings," he says, "you have to start thinking. If you come from the working class, you might say, I can send $100 to the Red Cross, and that's fine, but you also have corporations that could do something special.
"The great thing about a large company that makes a profit is that you have the capability to jump in and be helpful -- right away."
Mr. Stronach immediately dispatched his assistant, Dennis Mills, to Florida.
"I got this call from Frank," says Mr. Mills, who was still in Palm Beach yesterday afternoon, "and he says 'This is crazy! Let's go!'
"A lot of Canadians have kicked the shit out of Frank Stronach for his crazy ways, but let me tell you, he makes you proud to be a Canadian down here today."
Mr. Mills, a 16-year Toronto member of Parliament who lost in the 2004 general election to New Democratic Leader Jack Layton, is an organizational legend whose triumphs include helping to bring Pope John Paul II to Canada for World Youth Day and the Rolling Stones to Toronto for the successful SARS relief concert.
Mr. Mills immediately began working with FEMA and the Red Cross to cut through the red tape and line up several hundred candidates for the airlift. The first evacuees landed in Montgomery, Ala., where buses picked them up.
"These people were traumatized," Mr. Mills says. "The first planeload of 126 was basically people they'd fished out of the bayou that morning. We had 90-year-olds, kids, pregnant women. We headed straight for Wal-Mart and bought all the food we could carry."
At Palm Beach, local volunteers mobilized to provide medical care and clothes.
"We had psychiatrists putting on bandages," laughs Mr. Mills. "There were Palm Beach women doing the cooking. The clothing they brought to hand out you couldn't believe -- Holt Renfrew stuff. They brought enough for 10,000 people, let alone 300. I felt like doing a complete wardrobe change myself.
"It was the most unbelievable experience. You would have thought there was no colour at all. I feel like I've just witnessed a miracle."
The racetrack training facilities are scheduled to be turned over to the horse world in November, and by then Mr. Stronach and Mr. Mills hope to have a suitable location for the promised new community. The thinking at the moment is that the victims would all wish to return to Louisiana, but Mr. Stronach says the decision will be largely left to them.
Mr. Stronach is also willing to talk to them about making it an extended community that could evolve into a permanent new residence for those now in South Florida. He thinks it might be possible to house as many as 1,000 of the hurricane survivors on a plot of land on higher ground and has already asked staff to look into such matters as farming, as well as the creation of an educational facility that could bring entrepreneurship to the community.
"Helping people, feeding and shelter, that's the easy part," Mr. Stronach says. "The challenging part is what do we do to get them back on their feet again."
Mr. Stronach has already quietly gone down this route in Baltimore, home of Pimlico, another of Magna's large thoroughbred racetracks.
Struck by the poverty surrounding the historic site, Mr. Stronach has turned an abandoned school with extensive grounds into a modern technical school. He then searched through Magna for a bright young manager who happened to be both black and from Baltimore and could be talked into leaving auto parts to run an educational facility. The school -- aimed at teaching entrepreneurship and technical skills to those who might otherwise drop out of school -- has its official opening this month.
Mr. Stronach's hope is to encourage other successful corporations to become more directly involved, whether through education or, in the case of the South Florida project, a quick response to such tragedies as the hurricane devastation in Louisiana.
"We create a role model," he says, "and, hopefully, other companies will see what can be done.
"We are committed to seeing this through to the end."
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