Some of the participants in a recent Edmonton Labour Day picnic. If the union haters had their way, unions giving food to these guys would be illegal. Below, Merit Contractors Association President Stephen Kushner and the group’s weird website image. Some of my younger readers may not realize this, but
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The Progressive Economics Forum: Unionization and Labour Market Performance
Further to my earlier post on the “own goal” scored by the Fraser Institute report on North American labour markets, the Table below shows the rankings of the Canadian provinces – out of 60 states and provinces – for (1) labour market performance, 2007-11 and (2) the unionization rate. (I
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Labour Market Regulation and Labour Market Performance
A release by the Fraser Institute – Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States, 2012 Edition – registers as a spectacular own goal. The Fraser Institute believes – and argues in this study – that strong unions, high minimum wages and high levels of public sector employment undermine
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Ethical Oil charity complaint sparks Alberta corporate complaint
Commentator Ezra Levant lets go a broadside at Tides Canada on his Sun News Network program. Below: Researcher Tony Clark; Jamie Ellerton, executive director of Mr. Levant’s Ethical Oil Institute; National Revenue Minister Gail Shea. As is well known, the “Ethical Oil Institute,” the Edmonton-based organization founded by Sun News
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Unsuccessful at the polls, Alberta market fundamentalists want the courts to impose two-tier health care
What heath care for the rest of us will look like if the market fundamentalist right’s battle for insurance companies’ “rights” ever succeeds. Below: Private health-care advocate John Carpay; Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne; Alberta Liberal Health Critic David Swann. Not satisfied with their failure in the Alberta provincial election,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Donna Laframboise Flown To Australia By Climate Science Denying Think Tank
delinquent.jpg CANADIAN blogger and climate science sceptic Donna Laframboise has flown off for a tour of Australia to tell anyone willing to listen that the world's foremost body on climate change, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is something resembling a shambling mess. Laframboise's trip has been organised by
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Tories use think tank notorious for fabricating evidence to support white paper
It is interesting that the Ontario Tories quote the Pacific Research Institute in this week’s white paper on labour. In the paper, the Tories say the average yearly economic growth in U.S. States with voluntary union rules is 4.4 per cent compared … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Freedom from government services day
Well well, another misinformed tax freedom day has come and gone on June 12th. To mark the occasion this year I wanted to skip over the very serious methodological flaws that others have pointed out, and take a look at several other items that Canadians are “free of” at various points. By
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Time to Audit the Fraser Institute
Fraser-Institute.jpg On March 25, 2012, the Compliance Division of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) received a letter from Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP (aka JSS Barristers). In 11 detailed pages, JSS Barristers lodged a complaint against Environmental Defence, a charity registered with the CRA, on behalf of Ezra Levant’s
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Opportunistic Conservative attack on green charities highlights tax abuses by Tory cronies
Charity: Right-wing think tanks and Ducks Unlimited are most certainly not exactly as illustrated. Below: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and National Revenue Minister Gail Shea. Supporters of the Harper Government’s campaign to use tax laws to de-fund its opponents need to be careful what they wish for. They might just
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Meet The New Estimate, Same as the Old One
Former Reform Party MP turned Fraser Institute fellow and Vancouver economist Herb Grubel has taken to the pages of the Globe & Mail to drum up support for a new edition of his Fraser Institute “study” purporting to show that immigrants soak up an average of $6000 extra in government
Continue reading350 or bust: McCarthyism, Canadian Style
In Tuesday’s Huffington Post Cameron Fenton, National Director of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, wrote an excellent article about the Harper government’s hounding of environmentalists and First Nations opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline. In Harper Government Can’t See the Forest For the Trees, Mr. Fenton starts off by describing
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine Gears Up
Deeply affronted, perhaps even frightened by the recent change to the Ontario budget that will impose an increase of 2% on the income of those making over $500,000 per year, the right-wing has been busy cranking out its anti-tax propaganda. Lest anyone think that a return to some form of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: U.S. Republican Koch oil billionaires help fund the Fraser Institute. Why the Fraser Institute?
Vancouver Observer.png Authored by Jenny Uechi, originally published at Vancouver Observer. Re-posted with permisison. U.S. libertarian oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have poured at least half a million dollars into The Fraser Institute over the last few years. In case you haven't been following their trail, here's a bit
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Krugman writes a long-overdue obituary for the confidence fairy who was supposed to turn needless austerity into growth contrary to all economic evidence: So, about that doctrine: appeals to the wonders of confidence are something Herbert Hoover would have found completely familiar
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Koch Brothers fund Fraser Institute
Fraser Institute.gif Hats off to Alex Stoymenoff at the Vancouver Observer for turning up evidence that the Koch Brothers have been ladling money into Canada's own climate dissembling Fraser Institute since at least 2008. It helps to answer why a so-called "think" tank – even one so ideologically hidebound as the
Continue readingbastard.logic: Pushing Weight
After Ethical Oil is done with its proxy Zombie Joe McCarthy crusade against the David Suzuki Foundation (what, are Ezra & co. gonna put out a hit on Raffi next?), perhaps it might consider lobbying the feds to take a look at another clear example of untoward abuse of our noble charitable
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Morton’s Fork, Alberta
In the politics of Alberta, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg vision has been bastardized to become “government of business, by business, for business.” In the April 23 election, voters can re-elect a tired, incompetent Conservative government which, according to Alberta journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, does: “a much better job representing the interests of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire: Danielle Smith and Big Tobacco
What is it with right-wing politicians and tobacco, anyway? Below: Don’t worry, she won’t have to pay higher taxes for that cigarette. The leaders of all Alberta parties but one seem committed to ending smoking by young Albertans. The sole holdout? It’s the Wildrose Party, led by former Fraser Institute
Continue readingWill the Fraser Institute be audited?
Now that the federal government has allocated $8-million for the auditing of charitable groups ostensibly to ensure they stay within the Charities Act, one naturally wonders if this will include all charities or be limited to environmental groups, the bête noire of the Conservative/oil industry coalition. The Fraser Institute is
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