corporate and think-tank researcher

Fraser Institute

Follow the Money, Part 6 — Obesity: A new role for second-hand-smoke-causes-cancer deniers

21 May '14

Last week I wrote about tobacco industry funding for Fraser Institute research that “proved” second-hand smoke doesn’t cause cancer. You may think that’s ancient history. And in one sense you’re right. The tobacco industry has shifted its doubt-manufacturing operations to countries like Russia, Indonesia and China, where the incidence of smoking—and cancer—continues to rise. But …

Follow the Money, Part 5 — The Tobacco Papers Revisited

20 May '14

Michael Walker, former executive director of the Fraser Institute, long denied that institute directors—the people who fund the institute’s work—can tell researchers what to do. According to this rosy view of the think tank’s mission, Big Oil directors from Calgary, for instance, don’t tell Fraser Institute researcher Kenneth Green to produce studies denying global warming …

Follow the Money, Part 2 — Barrick Gold’s Peter Munk

10 Apr '14

The Fraser Institute awarded Barrick Gold chairman Peter Munk its T.P. Boyle Founder’s Award at a gala dinner in Toronto in 2010. This is the think tank’s most prestigious award, which it gave to Munk “in recognition of his unwavering commitment to free and open markets around the globe and his support for enhancing and …

Follow the Money, Part 1 — The Weston Family

27 Mar '14

You’ve seen him in television ads hyping President’s Choice dessert ideas, naming fake supermarkets after enthusiastic customers, sitting down with moms around the kitchen table and talking to President’s Choice farmers on their hormone-free farms. He’s Galen Weston Jr., executive chairman of Loblaw Companies Ltd. And while he, or his media handlers, hone the image …

Why Harper wants more poor Canadians

13 Jan '12

Is Stephen Harper’s goal for Canada the United States of today? That would mean a nation in which somewhere between a half and a third of its citizens have fallen into poverty or are hovering just above, in low income. This according to latest data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, 400 Americans are …

Debunking the Fraser Institute’s Latest Crusade: Teacher Merit Pay

24 Jun '11

Most studies show scant link between student achievement and financial rewards for instructors. Fresh from the triumph of successfully promoting its fallacious school report card, this time in Alberta, the Fraser Institute is already scheming to peg teacher pay to student test scores and create a market for teachers. We should remember that the institute’s …

Kevin Falcon — The Fraser Institute’s Candidate?

24 Feb '11

There’s reason to think so. Start with his ‘heroes’ Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. If Kevin Falcon wins the BC Liberal leadership contest on Feb. 26 and becomes premier, will the Fraser Institute help him craft his first budget? There’s plenty of precedent for such a scenario. Take 1983, for instance. Three weeks …

Eight Distortions and Other Problems in the Fraser Institute’s Report Card

08 Feb '11

The Fraser Institute says its report card is based on the Foundation Skills Assessment tests written by children in Grades 4 and 7 across the province. But is it really? 1. The actual FSA results account for less than half of a school’s ranking. The rest is based on the institute’s manipulations of the numbers. …

Reframing Public Education: Countering School Rankings and Debunking the Neoliberal Agenda

31 Jul '10

1. Introduction and study overview West Vancouver real estate agent Brock Smeaton thinks highly of the Fraser Institute‘s report card. “Independent assessments of educational institutions such as the Fraser Institute‘s annual ranking of BC schools consistently place West Vancouver schools in the upper echelons,” he wrote on his web site touting West Vancouver homes. Parent …

Why Attack the Long Census?

29 Jul '10

Check off another box on the Fraser Institute’s libertarian to-do list. To understand the brouhaha surrounding the long census, look not to Stephen Harper, but to the libertarian Fraser Institute and its long-term agenda to get government out of every activity except to protect the market, including the market for statistics. The Fraser has been …

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Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada

harperism cover

Margaret Thatcher transformed British political life forever. So did Ronald Reagan in the United States. Now Canada has experienced a similar, dramatic shift to a new kind of politics, which author Donald Gutstein terms Harperism. Among its key tenets:

A weakened labour movement – and preferably the disappearance of unions – will contribute to Canada’s economic prosperity
Cutting back government scientific research and data collection will improve public policy-making

The success of Harperism is no accident. Donald Gutstein documents the links between the politicians, think tanks, journalists, academics, and researchers who nurture and promote each other’s neo-liberal ideas.

Fraser Institute

Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada

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