Fraser Institute Penalizing Rich Students… Sort Of
Unfortunately I was buried in research over the past week, which not only slowed down my usual production of posts but, worse yet, means I missed the fact that the…
Sixth Estate
Best Line on a Resume: Member of Jim Flaherty’s Riding Association
The Globe & Mail reports that the Oshawa Port Authority is going to be set up by the boss of finance minister Jim Flaherty’s Oshawa-Whitby riding association, Gary Valcour. This…
Ontario-Funded Think Tank Says Ontario Not Getting Enough Transfer Payments
Alternate title: Toronto Star Leaves Key Piece of Information Out of Coverage of Mowat Centre. The Mowat Centre, it seems, is unhappy about the state of federal-provincial transfers in this…
Fraser Institute: “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”
Suppose you’re a three-pack-a-day smoker. Over the last couple of years, with a lot of hard work and sheer will power, you’ve cut back to half a pack a day.…
Sixth Estate Flack Award Goes to Jason Kenney for Fraudulent Citizenship Ceremony
The Sixth Estate Weekly Flack Awards are given to the Cabinet ministers whose communications staff make the most appalling and disrespectful spectacle of the week, taking the already low standards…
Justice in the American Jungle, Part 2
When we last left off, CIA agent John Kiriakou was leaving his job after apparently feeling some remorse over his role in the commission of abduction, illegal confinement, and war…
Justice in the American Jungle, Part 1
The story which follows is drawn from a charge laid in an American court a week or so ago. One of the themes of this blog is that the rule…
Who Lobbies the Canadian Government
I’ve been watching the Canadian lobbyist registry for about a month now, as part of my ongoing Lobbyist Tracker project. So far, I’ve highlighted the hypocrisy of the Harper regime…
Globe & Mail Says Canada Needs More Indebted Seniors
There comes a point when you’ve moved past trying to stay optimistic in the face of bad news into the realm of the simply deluded — or, no better, into…
Newt Gingrich is a Visionary
Well, not really. Actually Newt Gingrich is a corrupt, overly ambitious, unexpectedly arrogant candidate. The fact that he is still seriously in the running for the Republican ticket is evidence…
Sixth Estate Flack Award Recognizes Year-Late Government Celebration of Parks Canada Anniversary
The Sixth Estate Flack Awards are a regular series created last December to recognize ministers and their subhuman mouthpieces for going below and beyond the call of duty in crafting…
Conflict of Interest? Not Here!
Let’s suppose that it was publicly revealed that a communications officer in the Prime Minister’s Office — Sara MacIntyre — was the wife of a senior Russian diplomat at the…
Trueman Tuck, Man of God and Lobbyist Extraordinaire
Alternative title: how many degrees of separation are there between Ontario anti-wind activists and medical quackery advocates? Most of my trawling through the federal disclosure records and databases is simply…
Fraser Institute Slams Alberta’s Decision to Kill Bogus School Testing
Predictably, the Fraser Institute is not happy that the Albertan government is moving to abolish elementary school provincial achievement tests (PATs), which it uses as fodder for its dubious and…
Billionaire Conservatives Dominate Federal Lobbying
In response to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s recent temper tantrum about “foreign billionaire socialists hijacking” the pipeline hearings, I reactivated my Lobbyist Watch project, which tracks the burgeoning lobbying…
National Post Says: Read Your Bibles, Everyone
This essay is cross-posted at Rev. Dave’s Bible Study, Sixth Estate’s adjunct blog on religion. Let’s suppose that an NGO was about to distribute a booklet in your child’s grade…
Harper Regime Sends Important Torture Commission Report Down Memory Hole
This week, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the Harper regime that several Canadian citizens detained and tortured in developing countries based on advice passed to the Americans from…
Government By Gimmick
Yesterday the Harper regime’s Minister of Graft and President of the Treasury Board, the Dishon. Tony Clement, proved that he is not only corrupt but also an incompetent buffoon: Minister…
Tom Flanagan, Founder-Worship, and the Canadian States’ Rights Movement
Tom Flanagan has published what apparently passes for a wise think-piece from a tenured professor, celebrating the dismantling of the Canadian healthcare system on the grounds that it gets us…
BS Fraser Institute Study Advocates Privatization of Minority Language Rights
The Fraser Institute’s first report of the new year is a strident attack on provincial bilingualism policies which attempts to count the costs of providing services to minority populations and,…