corporate and think-tank researcher

Neoliberalism

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 …

War On Public Schools Rages

29 Apr '10

Supporters of public education need to realize they’re in the middle of a war for its future, and they’re losing. The Fraser Institute’s school report-card program is merely the opening salvo in a campaign to strip public education of its funding and direct the resources to the private and nonprofit sectors. Every year the institute …

Inside the DDT Propaganda Machine

22 Jan '10

Pretend to speak for poor Africans, lie about true causes of disease. That’s how you get the news media to love a lethal pesticide. [Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from Not A Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy, by Donald Gutstein, Key Porter (2009).] News is not propaganda, but the success of propaganda …

Libertarian Media Toe the Anti-Klein Line

11 Oct '07

People love her; many mainstream journalists loathe her. With a few notable exceptions, Canadian media commentators and book reviewers trashed Naomi Klein and her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Knopf Canada, $36.95). Meanwhile, the book continues to do well on the bestseller lists, ranking close behind Brian Mulroney’s reminiscences, which …

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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.

Donald Gutstein