The Return of Right To Work

With the usual predictability the right wing corporate think tank the Fraser Institute blows the dust off their old humbug of right to work labour law reform.
In 1997 they published the usual right wing attack on unions accusing them for declines in productivity: Unionization and Economic Performance: Evidence on Productivity, Profits, Investment, and Growth

In 1999 they published the usual attack on minimum wages: The Economics of Minimum Wage Laws

They have released yet another study comparing apples and oranges.

In this case the labour relations in Canada which are Rand Formula, and the labour relations in the US which are Taft Hartely. No freeriders in Canadian unions, everyone pays dues, while in the US its all right to work, sic, which does not mean full employment, but rather favours the bosses in keeping unions out of the workplace.

Yet another American foibel that the Fraser Institute would like to ship north of the border.

This is supposedly a think tank and policy wonk institute for the right wing business interests in Canada, and they can do no better than come up with Canada Bad USA Good.

So it should be no surprize that these simpiltons come up with Unions Bad, Bosses Good.

The Fraser Institute: Media Release; 
Unbalanced Labour Laws and a Large Public Sector
Key Reasons for Canada's High Unionization Rate

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - Aug. 31, 2005) - A larger
public sector and biased labour laws are key reasons for Canada's high
unionization rate, which is more than twice that of the United States,
according to Explaining Canada's High Unionization Rates, released today
by The Fraser Institute.

In 2004, the unionization rate in Canada was 31.8 percent, significantly
higher than the United States' 13.8 percent.

According to the authors, differences in labour relations law-the
regulations that govern the interactions between employers and their
employees and union representatives-have a particularly strong influence
on unionization rates.

The second aspect of labour laws seen to influence unionization rates
was allowing mandatory dues payments to be part of collective
agreements. All Canadian provinces, in one way or another, allow the
inclusion of mandatory union dues in collective agreements. This
provides unions with a secure source of revenue and the ongoing
resources needed to promote collective representation.

Clemens pointed out that the United States, on the other hand, only
allows partial mandatory dues payments; U.S. workers covered by
collective agreements cannot be required to pay union dues for political
and social initiatives that are unrelated to representation under the
collective agreement. In addition, 22 U.S. states-the so-called
Right-to-Work states-have expanded the U.S. law to prohibit any
mandatory dues payment as a condition of employment.

The Right-to-Work states maintain much lower average rates of
unionization (8.2 percent), than other states (16.2 percent) and the
Canadian total (31.8 percent).

"There are stark differences in unionization rates between not only
Canada and the U.S. but also between Right-to-Work and non-RTW states,"
commented Clemens. "Clearly, the ability of workers to voluntarily
choose to financially support union activities has a dramatic impact on
unionization rates."

The final area of labour laws reviewed in the study was mandatory union
membership clauses; no Canadian jurisdiction prohibits mandatory union
membership clauses while all U.S. states prohibit such requirements.

In 1996 the Fraser Institute and the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) jointly launched a campaign in Alberta to try and get Right To Work instituted into the provincial labour code. The resistance of unions and unionized employers defeated their efforts. Not before they created Canadians Against Forced Unionization, sic, CAFU. I like the FU part, it really says it all. The Fraser Institute provided a former intern student as chair of CAFU, which was funded by and a lobbying arm of the NCC, he is thecurrent Conservative MP Rob Anders from Calgary. The RTW study doen by the Fraser Institute in 95 was by Fasil Mahil who is currently an Editor with the National Post. And the past director of the NCC is no stranger to Canadians, its Stephen Harper leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

If these guys say one more thing about the liberal left dominating politics and media in Canada I think I will vomit.

I produced this poster at the time in response to CAFU.

RIGHT TO WORK?

NO THANKS.

ABOLISH WORK!

WORKERS AGAINST FORCED LABOUR

Utah ranked top jurisdiction for mining investment by  Fraser Institute

CATO INSTITUTE NORTH

Staff Writer | May 24, 2024 | 

Bingham Canyon mine, Utah. Credit: Utah Geological Survey

Utah took over the No.1 spot in the Fraser Institute’s 2023 ranking of jurisdictions for mining investment, topping its neighboring state Nevada, the winner from 2022.


The ranking encompasses 86 jurisdictions around the world, based on their geologic attractiveness (minerals and metals) and government policies that encourage or deter exploration and investment, including permit times.

To arrive at the ranking, the Fraser Institute surveyed approximately 2,045 mining-related firms globally between August 16, 2023, and January 9, 2024, tallying their opinions on both mineral endowment and policy factors.

These companies had reported exploration expenditures of $4.2 billion in 2022 and $4.1 billion in 2023, according to Canadian think tank.

The top rankings for 2023. Credit: The Fraser Institute

Rounding out the top five were the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Quebec, followed by Western Australia, which topped the list in 2021. Overall, Canada has the most jurisdictions within the top 10.

On the other end of the scale, the least-attractive jurisdiction was Niger, followed by China, Solomon Islands, and Argentina: La Rioja. In fact, of the 10 least-attractive jurisdictions in the world, four are in Africa.

“A sound regulatory regime coupled with competitive taxes make a jurisdiction attractive to investors,” said Elmira Aliakbari, director of the Fraser Institute’s Center for Natural Resource Studies and co-author of the report.

“Policymakers across the globe should understand that mineral deposits alone are not enough to attract investment,” she added.

Utah, now the most attractive jurisdiction, has a rich history in mining dating back to the 1860s. The total historical value of its minerals is valued at over $215 billion, according to government estimates. The state was ranked 17th in investment attractiveness in 2022.

Click here to read the full report.

Fraser Institute On Lebanon

I found this Fraser Institute Report on Economic Freedom, ie. advanced capitalist development, in the Arab World. In it they praise Lebanon, not once but at least twice and place it in their top five Arab countries developing capitalism their way in the region. Despite last summers war on Lebanon by Israel. This press release was made from Beirut in December.

Five Arab nations share economic freedom awards during ceremony in Beirut
News Release

Despite the current troubles in Lebanon, we thought it important to proceed with the
meeting to show our support for Lebanon and the region, and the role that economic
freedom can play in its future,” said Fred McMahon, director of The Fraser Institute’s
Centre for Globalization Studies.

1) Lean Government Award: Lebanon
This category examines various measures to determine whether the government sector is inappropriately large, crowding out personal choice with government decisions.

3)Sound Money Award: Lebanon
This measures the extent to which a nation’s currency is sound and holds its value over time.

Data for the Economic Freedom of the Arab World Report (2006)

Which shows the correctness of my thesis; that the war against Lebanon was a deliberate attempt to destablize a capitalist economy in competition with Israel. In other words classic Imperialist reasoning to go to war; inter-capitalist competition. Hizbollah was a mere pretext.

Specifically see:

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Economic War

The Economics of War In Lebanon

Six Week War for Nothing

Lets Get Our Facts Straight

Hezbollah Are Not Terrorists

Israel War Crimes

We Are Hezbolah

Links to my articles on:

Fraser Institute

Lebanon

Israel

Middle East

Arab


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Long Waits for Surgery, Treatment Cost Canadians Almost $4.1 billion in Lost Wages


Long waits for surgery and medical treatment cost Canadians almost $4.1 billion in lost wages and productivity last year (2021), finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

Preliminary data suggest that an estimated 1.4 million patients waited for medically necessary treatment last year, and each lost an estimated $2,848 (on average) due to lost wages and reduced productivity during working hours.

“Health-care workers across Canada should be commended for the superb job they’re doing to get us through this global pandemic. However, while we are constantly reminded of the consequences of COVID-19, less discussed are the consequences of unreasonable waits for surgery which can range from physical pain and psychological distress for some, to permanent disability and death for others,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2022.

Across Canada, the costs of waiting for medical care were about $4.1 billion.

The study draws upon data from the Fraser Institute’s Waiting Your Turn study, an annual survey of Canadian physicians who, in 2021, reported the national median waiting time from specialist appointment to treatment was 14.5 weeks.


Crucially, the $4.1 billion in lost wages is likely a conservative estimate because it doesn’t account for the additional 11.1-week wait to see a specialist after receiving a referral from a general practitioner.

Taken together (11.1 weeks and 14.5 weeks), the total median wait time in Canada for medical treatment was 25.6 weeks in 2021—the longest in the survey’s history.

“While some of this backlog is the direct result of COVID-19 related closures, results from the same survey suggest that almost as many (1.1 million) patients were waiting for treatment in 2019 – before the pandemic started,” said Mackenzie Moir, Fraser Institute policy analyst and study co-author.

Because wait times and incomes vary by province, so does the cost of waiting for health care. While the highest cost of waiting per patient is estimated to be borne by patients in Nova Scotia ($6,343), Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador reported large decreases in the per patient cost of waiting, warranting caution when interpreting results. Outside the maritime provinces, residents of Manitoba ($3,519) faced the highest per-patient cost of waiting, followed by Alberta ($3,199), Saskatchewan ($3,129).

Shazia Nazir, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Milton Reporter, Milton Reporter

Fraser Institute Exposed

Here is an excellent expose on that charitable taxpayer funded think tank of the Right; The Fraser Institute. Who funds the Fraser Institute?

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Gwyn Morgan Union Buster

Here are exerpts from Gwyn Morgans speech to the Fraser Institute. He says more, on immigration, crime, coloured folks, etc. But this is his anti-union rant.Oh and in being anti-monopoly he is of course not speaking of corporate monopolies, but of the public sector.

Which reminds me of when Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute at a Labour Arbitration Conference in Calgary referred to unions as parasites on the back of workers. Really I thought the parasites were the bosses and the ruling class. But then as I told Mr. Walker he really was a wannabe Ayn Rand in drag.

Oh and Gwyn Morgan is from Calgary. Why is that no surprize.

Tonight, I will follow the Fraser Institute's example of calling a spade a shovel by looking at facts. Now that I've got the shovel out, let's dig down to the root cause of some key issues.The first one is the relationship between unionization and economic competitiveness. It has been demonstrated time and again that private sector unionization eventually leads to an uncompetitive business. One only has to look at the union vs. non-union auto plants in North America and the rest of the world for proof of this ... The highly unionized auto sector in Germany is in deep trouble, while auto plants in eastern European countries are thriving. The former industrial heartlands of the United States in upstate New York and Michigan are in deep trouble, while non-union plants in the Carolinas thrive. The "big three" unionized auto manufacturers in Ontario are in trouble, burdened by uncompetitive cost structures and rigid work rules. The downward drift into the abyss continues, while union leaders and politicians focus only on the symptoms. It's sad to see people who have put in decades of dedicated service put out of a job, when their own unions have made their employers uncompetitive. How can an organization that is fighting with itself compete with organizations where everyone is aligned to outperform the competition?The reason that the private sector has become less and less unionized is because a lot of unionized businesses fail ... Unions thrive on monopolies. Monopolies rarely go out of business — they simply pass on their increasing costs and inefficiencies. And the public sector is, by definition, brimming with monopolies. So we see the phenomena of spiralling public sector costs combined with inefficient and low-quality public sector services. Now let's get our shovel out again and dig into another issue that is crucial to both Canadians' social stability and productivity — the immigration system.

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Gwyn, Morgan, Encana, Harper, Conservatives, Fraser-Institute, Government, Unions, Immigrantion, racism, privatization, anti-union

FRASER INSTITUTE FAIL

Nearly half of federal budget deficit during pandemic not related to COVID spending

“You could argue that part of the reason for the larger deficit was that federal revenues were down during the pandemic and spending up”

Bryan Passifiume - National Post

A health care worker guides a woman wearing a mask outside of St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic.© Provided by National Post

As Canada set new records for government spending during COVID-19, a newly released report suggests nearly half of the spending was not related to the pandemic.

Authored by Lakehead University Economics Professor Livio Di Matteo for the Fraser Institute, the paper — entitled Storm Without End: The Fiscal Impact of COVID-19 on Canada and the Provinces — says federal spending grew by 73 per cent in 2020/21 to $644.2 billion.

That number declined into the next fiscal year, falling 21 per cent to $508.2 billion in 2021/22.

In 2020/21, the report says, the federal government debt grew by around 41 per cent, and 12.4 per cent, to $1.3 trillion, in 2021/22.

“You could argue that part of the reason for the larger deficit was that federal revenues were down during the pandemic and spending up,” Di Matteo said.

“But if you look at the federal revenue performance, it was down about 5 per cent in 2021, but started to rebound quite dramatically.”

Estimates for 2021/22, which Di Matteo said have yet to be finalized, suggest a 17 per cent increase.

Health spending saw an estimated increase of nearly 13 per cent between 2019 and 2020, the report reads — a rate of increase Di Matteo said was over triple the established health care spending growth rate since 2015, and a boost not seen in over three decades.

During the pandemic, around 60 per cent of the federal budget deficit was directly related to the pandemic, largely both federal health spending and related transfers to the provinces, as well as income support programs.

This, the report indicates, suggests a permanent, long-term spending increase.

Projections released late last year by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CHI) suggested the spike in pandemic health spending — expected to exceed $308 billion by the end of 2021 — could put hamper efforts by provinces to rebuild their health care networks post-COVID.

Dr. Katharine Smart, 

president of the Canadian Medical Association, told The Canadian Press in November that provincial health care systems haven’t kept up with these historic increases in health spending, comparing the problem as an out-of-control freight train.

But what impact does this have on Canada’s economic future?

A looming longer-term consequence, he said, is the impact on the federal debt.

“You’re looking at a debt to GDP ratio going from about 33 to 50 per cent, and for the time being a lot of that is locked in at relatively low interest rates,” he said.

But as that debt starts to turn over and new debt accrues, that could lead to higher interest rates and a subsequent increased cost in servicing that debt.

While a great many factors go into a rise in inflation, the increased spending is certainly having an impact, Di Matteo said.

“Inflation is also a function of the supply chain disruptions, the w ar in Ukraine and u ltra-low interest rates still present, so that’s a complicated picture,” he said.

THE FRASER INSTITUTE IS A BIG BUSINESS RIGHT WING THINK TANK LIKE THE CATO INSTITUTE IN THE U$A

CANADA

Child-benefits Spending Reduces for Lower-income Families: study

The federal government has shifted the share of overall spending on child benefits away from lower-income families to middle and upper-income families to an even greater degree than previously thought, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute.

The Fraser Institute is an RIGHT WING independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization that studies effects of government policies. AND LIKE ITS COUNTERPART IN THE USA, THE CATO INSTITUTE, IT PROMOTES LESS GOVT REGULATION OF CORPORATIONS

“While the federal government often claims that child benefits go to Canadian families who need the money the most, the shift in overall spending tells a different story,” said Jason Clemens, executive vice-president of the Fraser Institute and co-author of Adjusting for the Canada Child Benefit’s Tax-Free Status.

In 2016, the federal government replaced two child-benefit programs with the Canada Child Benefit (CCB), which provides tax-free benefits to eligible families with children under the age of 18.

The study, based on data from Statistics Canada, measures the shifts in the share of child-benefit spending due to this change — although unlike previous analyses, this study accounts for the tax-free status of CCB payments (most other government income transfers are taxable).

Specifically, the elimination of the previous two programs and their replacement with the CCB — coupled with a recognition of the CCB’s tax-free status — results in the share of total child-benefit spending on families with incomes less than $60,000 declining from 42.9 percent under the previous two programs to 29.7 per cent.

Related video: Study: It now costs Americans about $310,000 to raise a child
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At the same time, the share of total child-benefit spending on families with incomes between $60,000 and $180,000 increased from 49.2 percent to 66.8 percent.

While the share of total child-benefit spending on families with incomes above $180,000 declined from 7.9 percent to 3.5 percent.

“At a time when Ottawa is running deficits with no end in sight, the CCB is yet another poorly targeted federal program,” Clemens said.

Jenna, a single mother, resident of Milton said that she was dependent on government support to take care of her child, but said that over time the amount received for child-benefits seems to have reduced.

“Especially for single mothers like me, the child-benefits should only be increasing rather than decreasing in real terms”, she said.

Shazia Nazir, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Milton Reporter, Milton Reporter

Right Wing Environmentalists

Ontario faces major decisions as future of power grid outlined

Currently, Ontario has a maximum capacity of about 30,000 megawatts, of which about 49 per cent is nuclear, 25 per cent is hydro, 17 per cent is coal, seven per cent is gas, and two per cent comes from other emerging energy technologies, such as wind power. Now, the province must decide what to build for a stable, self-reliant future. Hydro power is clean and economical but its dependence on weather can be a negative. Experts also say the province has maxed out most of its potential and can only make moderate gains in the future through small projects. Coal is linked to environmental and health problems -- McGuinty has promised to scrap Ontario's four coal-powered plants by 2009 -- and gas, though reliable, can be an exceedingly expensive option, given its constantly changing price. That leaves nuclear and green power -- not to mention a heated debate about which is the better option.

Duncan won't listen to 'Neanderthals'
Ontario has no plans to listen to "Neanderthals" who want the province to keep its coal-burning power plants operating, even if that's what a report being prepared for the government recommends, says Energy Minister Dwight Duncan. Duncan's resistance to coal is a mistake, argues Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams.Adams wants the province to keep at least two units at its Lambton station, south of Sarnia in southern Ontario, which rank fourth and ninth out of 403 in the report's list of the cleanest plants on the continent.

Toronto Star Editorial: New reactors vital for hydro system
Unless ways can be found to burn coal cleanly, like it or not, nuclear power will inevitably remain an essential part of the mix. It is clean, emissions free, and despite the breakdowns and recurring problems at the Pickering, Darlington and Bruce facilities, it has proven to be an affordable and, by and large, a reliable energy source. Even with their problems, nuclear plants generate about 50 per cent of all the province's electricity.

So yes Virginia you can be a right wing pro-capitalist environmentalist as Energy Probe and its associates prove *(see links ).


In Ontario Energy Probe is a right wing pro coal, pro P3, anti-union, environmental think tank. It is associated with other right wing think tanks like Probe International, the influential right wing Donner Foundation
and the Fraser Institute.

Energy Probe deliberately modeled itself on the public policy advocacy group Pollution Probe, which is a real public interest foundation of business, unions, non-government agencies, scientists and research councils, the public and government.

Energy Probe is a consumer and environmental research team, active in the fight against nuclear power, and dedicated to resource conservation, economic efficiency, and effective utility regulation.

They proclaim themselves anti-nuke, they are also critical of natural gas fired electrical plants. Leaving them to be promoters of King Coal.

Toronto: The debate over coal-fired power stations is sure to heat up after a report saying they aren't as big a polluter as originally thought.

In fact, a report by Energy Probe says two of the units are among the cleanest in North America.

Units three and four at the Lambton generating station near Sarnia rank in the top 10 cleanest among 403 coal generation units in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Energy Probes position on coal fired power plants, not surprizingly is the same as that of the Fraser Institute.

Ontario Government in the Dark on Coal Plant Closings: Shutting Down Coal-fired Power Plants will do more Harm than Good

Their criticism of CANDU reactors, the safest nuclear power system in the world, is of course a criticism of government funded and sponsored nuclear power. They aren't opposed to private nuclear power, just government funded and operated nuclear power like CANDU.

They view Alternative energy sources as important but ONLY if it is created by the private sector.

National Post October 8/2004

Wind at our backs by Lawrence Solomon

The windmill entrepreneurs, unable to compete against the government-mandated subsidies, were snuffed out, ending their innovations and replacing their renewable-energy technology with power from remote power utilities that typically relied on burning coal. Wind technology remained extinguished for decades, until the environmental movement resurrected it in the late 1970s. Now wind technology is roaring back, logging the fastest growth of any energy technology in the world.

And they can sound very reasonable in press releases until we uncover their real agenda, the privatization of utilities and public services.

Then they join the rest of the right wing lobbyists, the NCC, Fraser Institute, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the C.D. Howe institute, etc. etc. ad naseum, as another voice for the privatization of everything. Making any research, public policy advocacy they do political.

In 2002 one of Energy Probes directors published a book promoting the privatization of water utilites in Canada. The book was a runner up for the Donner Book Prize on Public Policy.

LIQUID ASSETS:
Privatizing and Regulating Canada's Water Utilities
by Elizabeth Brubaker (University of Toronto Centre for Public Management)
Elizabeth Brubaker is the Executive Director of Environment Probe, a Toronto-based environmental think-tank. She is the author of Property Rights in the Defence of Nature.
MORE THAN TWO YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE contaminated water killed seven people and made 2,300 ill in Walkerton, Ontario. "People widely referred to Walkerton as a wake-up call, but many utilities and regulators are still sleeping," says Brubaker. Liquid Assets is a first-class book on an important subject. Intriguing, well-written and meticulously documented, the author provides an authoritative and readable study of privatization of water and waste-water facilities around the world.

Energy Probe-The 10 principles that guide us

The following principles have evolved from our 20-year-long analysis of the root causes of environmental destruction and of the elements of a sustainable society:

1. We work for environmental sustainability by promoting property rights (private or communal), markets, the rule of law, the right to know, accountability through liability, cost and risk internalization, economic efficiency, competition, consumer choice, and an informed public.
2. We strive to eliminate tragedies of the commons¹ by advocating property rights where resources can be exclusive, divisible, and alienable. In these situations, EPRF believes resources are most sustainably managed by the users of the resources themselves. EPRF advocates property rights:
   • to establish and preserve rights and responsibilities;
   • to account fully for social and environmental costs based on the values assigned by the rights holders; and
   • to internalize risks and costs (and to eliminate moral hazards²) in decision making.


3. We favour court actions based on the common law of nuisance, trespass, and riparian rights to empower individuals to protect themselves from environmental harm. We do not believe that governments should have the discretion to negotiate with polluters, or with other parties, to override traditional common law protections.



4. We generally oppose expropriation, which often results in environmental harm. We believe that voluntary agreements more fully internalize costs, protect the environment, and ensure economic efficiency.



5. We argue for the break up of unnatural monopolies, created by political or regulatory decree. Where natural monopolies exist, we advocate regulation that is mandated to protect the interests of consumers.



6. Where property rights cannot easily or affordably be assigned or enforced, we strive to eliminate tragic commons through statutory law and regulation. Although rigorous regulation is often required, regulatory authority must seek to avoid creating barriers to entry, stifling innovation, interrupting the flow of information, and forcing regulated parties to act against their best judgement.



7. We work to ensure the integrity of regulatory systems and the strict enforcement of laws that penalize unauthorized pollution. To eliminate biases and conflicts of interest, and to ensure that public and private sector polluters are treated equally, we advocate independent regulators, who are subject to due process and judicial review, and regulatory processes that require full disclosure of information.



8. We work to establish decentralized decision-making processes and to devolve decision making to the lowest practicable level – that which is closest to the individual.



9. We oppose subsidies to resource use. Where society favours subsidies to ensure social equity, we favour subsidizing resource users with direct payments, untied to the level of consumption, rather than subsidies that lower the apparent cost of the resource.



10. We oppose the socialization of private sector costs and risks through government subsidies and indemnities to the corporate sector. For example, while we approve of private insurance as a way to internalize risks and costs, we oppose government indemnities to resource or financial sectors, particularly if those indemnities protect risk takers and polluters from the risks and costs of their activities.

Energy Probe also runs a so called Consumer Policy Institute. Like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, generic terms like Taxpayer and Consumer are used by the right wing business lobbies to appear as if they are speaking for the public rather than the special interests they really are lobbying for...private sector contol of public services.

Consumer Policy Institute is a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation. Incorporated in 1980, Energy Probe is a federally recognized charitable organization, financially independent of governments and corporations.

EPRF has always promoted development that furthered our social, economic and environmental wellbeing. Some parts of our foundation focus on protecting the environment while respecting our social and economic needs; CPI focuses on our social and economic needs while respecting environmental needs. In today's society, with the communications revolution and trade liberalization eroding the power of regional, national, and international authorities, the influence of individuals and their local communities grows. A concern for our more immediate "social environments" or "human ecology" now accompanies our work to protect the natural environment.

Because the empowerment of individuals and of small communities is so vital to the well-being and stability of this new human ecology, empowerment is a central theme in CPI's work. Equally important to CPI's mission is an understanding that individuals' empowerment can become mere anarchy or oppression if it is not rooted in by a sense of responsibility to each other and to the natural world.

Our recent accomplishments and current projects reflect this conviction.

Health Reform

To protect and promote Canadian Medicare we have proposed a model of publicly funded health allowances or Medical Savings Accounts that finds true efficiencies while maintaining the Canada Health Act's five principles. The thrust of our work is to restore the integrity of the relationship between physicians and their doctors by empowering patients.

Airports

A sale for full market value of Canada's federally-owned airports would yield billions of dollars in immediate revenue for the cash-strapped government, as well as hundreds of millions a year in ongoing tax revenue. But instead of turning airports over to efficient, customer-oriented operators who will lower costs and increase service, the federal government has begun leasing them to local non-profit authorities set up by municipal councils. Consumer Policy Institute's study, Benefitting Consumers and the Economy Through Airport Privatization informs Canadians of the benefits of selling federal airports to the public.

Economic Policy
Transportation

Canada's public transit monopolies, already woefully inadequate and overly expensive, could soon be at the end of their road. By introducing competition to Canada's public transit systems, service would improve and costs would come down. Consumer Policy Institute is working to break up the public transit monopolies and give Canadians access to expanded, affordable service.

Our existing system of taxi regulation increases costs and decreases service, discriminating particularly against the poor and women, who use taxis most, while denying opportunities to immigrants and other new entrants into the labour force. Consumer Policy Institute reforms would reverse these inequities.

Canada's public transit monopolies, already woefully inadequate and overly expensive, could soon be at the end of their road. By introducing competition to Canada's public transit systems, service would improve and costs would come down. Consumer Policy Institute is working to break up the public transit monopolies and give Canadians access to expanded, affordable service.

Groupthink

We sometimes overlook the most obvious connection between deniers, those who deny global warming, those who deny evolution and those who deny the holocaust.

They suffer from the same kind of groupthink and conspiracy theories.

Its not denial they say, it's debate they want, the facts are not irrefutable, there is evidence to the contrary.

For a long time Bradley Smith has tried to present himself as an honest chap, a champion of intellectual freedom simply seeking an "open debate"about the "holocaust controversy [sic]." But this debate is a sham. The so-called holocaust controversy does not exist. It is the invention of a collection of long-time anti-Semites and apologists for Hitler.

On the surface, Holocaust deniers portray themselves as individuals and groups engaged in a legitimate, dispassionate quest for historical knowledge and "truth."

Dressing themselves in pseudo-academic garb, they have adopted the term "revisionism" in order to mask and legitimate their enterprise. After all, the ongoing challenge to and revision of previously accepted historical interpretation is one of the hallmarks of the professional historian's craft.

Of course most holocaust deniers are right wing kooks that even other right wingers disavow or do they? Not so. Once upon a time they had powerful business backers, and in many cases still do today.

Like Robert Welch Jr. who founded the John Birch Society. Today the Birchites focus their criticism on immigration, legal or illegal and the UN. There are many in a variety of right wing movements, like the Minutemen, whose roots go back to the sixties and the World Anti-Bolshevik Movement which gave succour to post WWII fascists.

The right wing is inundated with conspiracy theorists, holocaust deniers and neo-fascists. And ideological differences aside they are part of the 'mainstream' right, they are backed by private business interests and the tactics they have developed over fifty years of lobbying in the United States remain the same.

Because they are effective. Deny that your opponents have evidence, claim something is a theory, not a fact and viola, their views are challenged for there creditability.

Thus the same argumentative tactic used to deny the holocaust is used to deny evolution and used to deny climate change. It is groupthink on the right. And the argumentative style does not change, the subject of the attack does.

And it is always tinged with conspiracy theory, that the scientific or historical facts are being foisted on us because it is consensus reality, consensus of those in power it is not the 'real thing'.

So all the historians that accept the holocaust are establishment historians not 'real' historians. Scientists that accept evolution or global warming are not 'real' scientists.

The only place that a climate change science consensus exists is in what Essex and McKitrick call 'Official Science', the collective voice of governments and other so-called 'science authorities'. But this is not real science.

The Climate Change Deniers have money and powerful connections they have used to discredit their opponents, in this case other scientists and academics. And sometimes do so to end careers, literally terrifying their opponents into silence. Certainly a form of fascism.

"There is a strategy to single out individuals, tarnish them and try to bring the whole of the science into disrepute," he says. "And Kevin [Trenberth] is a likely target." Mann agrees that the scientists behind the upcoming IPCC report are in for a rough ride. "There is already an orchestrated campaign against the IPCC by climate change contrarians," he says.

Many of the IPCC's authors, some of whom asked not to be named, say this is a smokescreen. They claim there is an extensive network of lobby groups and scientists involved in making the case against the IPCC and its reports. Automobile, coal and oil companies have coordinated and funded past attacks on them, the scientists say. Sometimes this has been done through Washington lobby groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose officers include Myron Ebell, a former climate negotiator for George W. Bush's administration. Recently, the CEI made television advertisements arguing against climate change, one of which ended with the words: "Carbon dioxide, they call it pollution, we call it life." CEI's past funders include ExxonMobil, General Motors and the Ford Motor Company.

The money trail

Some sceptical scientists are funded directly by industry. In July, The Washington Post published a leaked letter from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), an energy company based in Colorado, that exhorted power companies to support the work of the prominent sceptic Pat Michaels of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Worried about the potential cost of cleaning up coal-fired power plants to reduce their CO₂ emissions, IREA's general manager, Stanley Lewandowski, wrote: "We believe that it is necessary to support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists... In February this year, IREA alone contributed $100,000 to Dr Michaels."

The Fraser Institutes response to the IPCC report was a long time in the making, and a coordinated effort between them and the anti-climate change lobby, the flat earthers, in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. And the organizations, front groups really, are all interconnected.

It was planned years ago, as new front organizations sprung up over the past three years in preparation for the IPCC report. While the Fraser Institute like its American counter-part the Cato Institute have existed since the seventies, groups like Canada's Natural Resources Stewardship Project, and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition are all relatively new lobbying groups. Even the older Friends of Science. was only created in 2002.

The push was on by the right and their big business backers when they saw the writing on the wall after Kyoto was signed. One faction of capitalism endorsed Kyoto, another was ambivalent, and a handful, but a powerful handful, vehmently opposed Kyoto.

Having lost the war they now engage in a protracted series of battles to attempt to inundate doubt in the public mind, using fronts like Junk Science.com and Fox News, various assorted right wing media mouthpieces in Canada, Europe and America. They know they have lost, but if in anyway they can hold back radical changes required to deal with the heat death of the planet, to save their industries they will. Victory to them is to delay change.

And they will never go away, another issue will come to the fore that they can delay, attack, undermine, and deny. And the consipiratorial politics of denial will once again be used.

The Right Wing exposes the Janus nature of the ruling class. One face appeals to the public as liberal, seeking to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism, the other jingoist, nativist, reactionary seeks to dominate through demagoguery and populism. One is enlightened capitalism the other is fascism. Both are false choices.

The alternative is, as it has always been for the past one hundred years, Barbarism or Socialism.



See:

Fraser Institute

Environment

Conspiracy Theory

Fascism

Anti-Semitism


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Thunk Tank

King Ralph gets a nice perk from the retirement home for neo-cons the Fraser Institute. Not unexpected since the Fraser Institute spent the last thirteen years gushing over Ralph, giving him an annual award for putting into practice what they preach. Retiring Klein will join the Fraser Institute

King Ralph will continue to suck at the public teat as the right wing think tank is a charitable institution. King Ralph will be in good company with other political porkchoppers Preston Manning and Mike Harris. Love these neo-cons who complain about the Nanny State but suckle off the public teat with their 'charitable' foundations, and political consulting firms.


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Fraser Institute Meets Bill O'Riley

Love this announcement from the Fraser Institute for their Flat Earth Report; note the Bill O'Riley like No Spin Zone pronouncement.

Climate Change Without the Spin:
An Independent Summary for Policymakers of the New IPCC Report

When spinning is exactly what this is all about. Another example of neo-con newspeak.


See

Environment


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Echo Chamber

Here we have more of the same echo chamber of the Flat Earth society of climate change deniers quoting each other without referencing they belong to the same old boys club.

For instance we get this right wing column in the London Free Press, a Quebecor/Sun newspaper,

Kyoto penalizes those trying to do good
The not-so-green cynics at the Small Dead Animals blogsite have dubbed Suzuki's tour, Flakes on a Plane, and worry about the amount of emissions-spewing fossil fuels Suzuki himself will burn up by the time his tour wraps up in Victoria.

Cynics? Cynics? Rightwhingnutbars is more like it. But of course this columnist is a member of the SDA fan club so he puts them in a charitable light.

And we have this report published in the Canadian Free (sic) Press

Asking the right questions about climate change

And the folks asking those right questins are

The Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP), a Canadian non-profit group, including a number of leading climate change sceptics, was launched October 12, 2006.

And they quote their pals in the Fraser Institute. As I pointed out here when they quote each other they fail to say they all belong to the same small circle of friends. Which is journalistically and intellectually dishonest, to say the least.

See:

Fraser Institute

Environment


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A Tax Break The Fraser Institute Hates

Now this is ironic. A tax break the Fraser Institute doesn't like.

“Canadians are investing in labour sponsored funds to get generous tax credits, not because the want to invest in Canadian entrepreneurs or expect to earn a high rate of return,”

Of course it's a tax break for the working class not the parasites of the investing class.


See:

Flaherty's Smoke and Mirrors

Vencap

Fire Sale

More Income Trust Fallout

A Peoples Program for Alberta

Workers Want Tax Credits NOT Tax Cuts

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Western Australia is world’s new top mining destination

Cecilia Jamasmie | April 11, 2022 

Western Australia has some of the world’s largest iron ore mines and it also hosts gold and lithium assets. (Stock image of the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie.)

Resource-rich Western Australia has been picked the most attractive region for mining investment in 2021, replacing the US state of Nevada, which fell to the third place in the latest annual survey of mining companies released by think-tank the Fraser Institute.


Canada’s Saskatchewan is still on the podium, climbing from a third place overall in 2020 to a second position in the 2021 index, which takes both mineral and policy perception into consideration.

Nevada, which topped the 2020 ranking, ranked third last year, followed by Alaska, Arizona, Quebec, Idaho, Morocco, Yukon, and South Australia.

The US was the country with the most jurisdictions considered among the world’s 10 most attractive by mining investors — Nevada, Alaska, Arizona and Idaho. Canada followed closely with three provinces at the top of the index — Saskatchewan, Quebec and the Yukon. Australia only had two states among the best ten destinations — Western Australia and Southern Australia.

Source: Fraser Institute’s Annual Survey of Mining Companies 2021.

As in previous years, the best places to invest in mining are located in developed countries with long histories of success in the industry, which not necessarily is a good thing.

The main issue is that the number of available projects in the top jurisdictions are limited, while some of the world’s best deposits are in places where doing business is, or is perceived as, risky.

Zimbabwe, which has an abundance of resources including gold, platinum, diamonds, lithium, chrome, and coal, ranked as the least attractive jurisdiction in the world for investment followed by Spain, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mali.

Also in the bottom ten, beginning with the worst, are Nicaragua, China, Panama, Argentina’s Mendoza, Venezuela and South Africa.

Permit times

The survey also included a sub-ranking of exploration jurisdictions, based on the length of their permitting process.

This year’s report went beyond Canada, gathering data from Australia, the US and Scandinavia, all regions where mining, environmental and other policies are broadly comparable.

In most Canadian provinces and territories, the majority respondents said they were able to acquire the necessary exploration permits within six months. There were some notable differences among regions, particularly when comparing Manitoba, where 42% of participants said it took them 24 months or more to obtain all necessary permits, versus British Columbia, where the majority said it took between three and six months.

“Overall, senior mining executives continue to cite the uncertainty around protected areas, disputed land claims, and environmental regulations as major areas of concern for Canadian provinces and territories,” said Elmira Aliakbari, director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Natural Resource Studies and co-author of the study.

“Policymakers in every province and territory should understand that mineral deposits alone are not enough to attract investment,” Aliakbari said.

Quebec performed the best, with 60% of respondents indicated that they received exploration permits in two months or less. When comparing the four regions included in the survey — Canada, the United States, Australia, and Scandinavia — Canadian jurisdictions have, on average, a higher percentage of respondents indicating that it took six months or less for them to receive their permits.

Deja Vu: Gen XYY Neo-Cons

Another book on the neo-con youth revolution has been released.....Sigh.
Cute couple on the cover...thought it was a Women are from Ottawa, Men are from Medicine Hat kinda of advise book.

Another call from the right wing youth movement is just well so boooooring. If the right hasn't gotten its shit together after years of us suffering the earlier generation of neo-con youth revolutionaries that unholy cabal of Ezra Levant, Jason Kenney and Robert Anders, all Fraser Institute interns and Reform/Alliance/Conservative party hacks, then its never going to get its shit together....thank the gods of war for that.

So lets see Ezra published his manifesto for the conservative youth generation Youthquake back in 1997, published by the Fraser Institute with an introduction by Jason Kenney then President of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The recent Fraser Institute publication Youthquake, by Ezra Levant, has been receiving quite a lot of attention from book reviewers. Here are some excerpts from the book:

On Government Charity:

"Too many programs designed to be social safety nets turn out to be hammocks: they trap people instead of getting them back to work."

On Pensions:

"Where the Canada Pension Plan is contributory—you have to pay into it to collect it—Old Age Security is pure gravy. You get it just for being old. It’s like a giant birthday present for every Canadian turning 65."

On Health Care:

"Sounds like a list for Santa: ‘I want free health care everywhere, all the time, plus peace on earth and my very own pony.’"

On Politicians And Pork:

"[I]n politics, only two things have value: money and votes. And where you find those twin political currencies, you’ll find government gravy."

On Youth And Debt:

"Just because we’re young doesn’t mean we should get free education. . . . We’ve been living in this fantasy world for so long, living off our credit and a smile, but now it’s catching up to us"

History will likely record Baby Boomers as the one anomalous generation to receive transfers from both its parents and its children.

Now almost a decade later another round of neo-con whiners come up with, well more of the same. And they are dopplegangers of the Levant/Kenney/Anders gang.

Tasha Kheiriddin (Toronto, ON) became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in February, 2004.

Adam Daifallah (Quebec City, QC) is a Canadian author and journalist. A native of Peterborough, Ontario, he is currently a law student at Laval University in Québec City, where he is the recipient of the Richard J. Schmeelk scholarship. Adam was a member of the editorial board at the National Post, as well as the newspaper's curling columnist, from 2003 to 2005

In Rescuing Canada's Right, the authors examine the problems facing the Conservative Party and the broader conservative movement, and offer concrete solutions on how to fix them.

Hey what are ya saying that Levant, Kenney and Anders and the rest of the conservative youth movement failed? If thats so what makes these two think they have anything new to say, let alone that their prescription for change can succeed.

Some of the issues the book will address:

• Why the Conservative Party and its predecessor parties have such a poor electoral record;
• Why today's Conservative Party is not really conservative.
• Why a new political vision is necessary to inspire Canadians--and what it should be.
• How the Liberals use public money to entrench an unhealthy reliance on the state--and how the right has failed to challenge it
• What Canadian conservatives can learn from the American and British experiences
• How to build a Canadian Conservative counter-culture in the media, academia, and the law
• How the right can break through to the young, and to immigrants in Quebec
• An action plan to end Canada's democratic deficit and level the political playing field.

Rescuing Canada's Right will be a hard-hitting and groundbreaking work that will introduce new ideas and a passionate call for change for 21st century Canada.

Ho hum heard it all before, hey isn't this what the Reform Party was all about before it sold out to get elected, and then wasn't this what the Alliance was all about and now.....well you get the idea. The Conservative revolution failed due to the internal putsch like politics of Alberta Tories over Preston Manning. And the young Turks behind that putsch were Levant/Kenney/Anders.

Nothing hard hitting here, nothing groundbreaking, lets see a Canadian Conservative Counterculture already dominates our media, academia and the law.

Their new vision for Canada is Republican Lite. The only difference between this 'new generation' of conservatives and their youthful elders; Levant, Kenney and Anders, is these two are from Ontario.....

Milk without the cow: Cellular agriculture could be the future of farming, but dairy farmers need help

Evan Bowness, Postdoctoral Researcher, Food and Agriculture Institute, University of The Fraser Valley,

 Robert Newell, Associate Director, Food and Agriculture Institute, University of The Fraser Valley, 

Sarah-Louise Ruder, PhD Student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia 


A new wave of cow-less dairy is hitting the market. In the United States, Perfect Day is using genetically modified fungi to produce milk protein for ice cream at a commercial scale. And pre-commercial companies, like TurtleTree and Better Milk, are engineering mammary cells to produce human and cow milk in laboratories, although these remain in the early stages of development.

© (Evan Bowness) Dairy cows in the Fraser Valley, B.C.

It might be some time before mammal-less dairy arrives in Canadian grocery stores. But these emerging technologies are part of the fourth agricultural revolution that aims to improve food security, sustainability and agricultural working conditions. With these promises for wins on the horizon, should the diary sector be worried?


As researchers from the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley, in British Columbia, we study food systems in transition. The Fraser Valley is home to 60 per cent of B.C.’s dairy farms, so we’re especially interested in the impacts cellular agriculture might have on the dairy system.
Animal agriculture’s challenges

Animal agriculture plays a big role in the global food system. The Food and Agriculture Organization states that animal agriculture provides roughly a third of global food protein, supports the livelihoods of over a billion people and contributes to soil fertility.

But animal agriculture is facing increased scrutiny, especially around environmental impacts and animal welfare issues. It is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, upwards of 16.5 per cent of global emissions, by some estimates.

Animal agriculture is also vulnerable to extreme environmental conditions and climate change. Recent flooding in B.C. killed well over half a million farm animals and threatened to contaminate the sensitive freshwater ecosystems of the Fraser Valley with stored manure and agricultural chemicals. And it’s a known risk factor for zoonotic diseases and pandemics, such as H1N1 or the swine flu.

One way to reduce the risks introduced by animal agriculture is to remove — or nearly remove — livestock from the food production equation. Cellular agriculture uses cell cultures to produce animal products without raising livestock, hunting or fishing. While still in its early phases, this technology could help meet growing demand for animal protein, reduce environmental impacts and address animal welfare concerns.
How does cellular agriculture work?

Cellular agriculture makes biologically equivalent or near-equivalent foods to those produced with animals. This is different from plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, such as Beyond Burgers and oat milk, which use plant ingredients that approximate their non-vegetarian counterparts.

Read more: Plant-based doesn’t always mean healthy

One approach is to use advanced fermentation, where yeasts, fungi and bacteria are genetically modified to produce proteins. The approach is similar to brewing beer, but with highly specialized micro-organisms that follow instructions that have been added to their genetic code.

You may already be eating products created using this technology. Thirty years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of a bioengineered form of rennet enzymes, which is widely used in cheese making and replaces the original enzymes which were harvested from calf stomachs.

Today, vats of micro-organisms, genetically modified to carry the appropriate calf gene, supply rennet for about 70 per cent of cheese made in the U.S. It’s functionally identical to the original cheese-making enzymes, but it’s easier, less costly to produce and doesn’t rely on mammals.

© (Shutterstock) Food scientists can use microorganisms to grow food ingredients in large vats, eliminating the need for livestock.

Another approach, called tissue engineering, uses cells collected from an animal to grow meat, fish or even leather in a controlled environment. The tissues grow, but in a nutrient-rich broth called growth media in bioreactor tanks.

Examples include GOOD Meat’s cellular chicken nuggets, the first commercially available cellular meat product, and WildType’s cellular salmon, which is being grown in stainless steel tanks in San Francisco.
What is at stake for dairy farmers?

Dairy is an important food commodity in Canada. Over 18,000 farm operators are employed at the roughly 10,000 dairy farms across the country, which together produced 9.5 billion litres of milk and earned farms over $7 billion in 2020.

To meet consumer demand and guarantee a fair price to the farmers, the Canadian supply management system controls dairy production volumes and the number of producers at the provincial level using a quota system. Farmers essentially buy the right to sell dairy products. Dairy farms are capital intensive and farmers often carry large debt loads, making it a difficult industry to enter.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward Flood waters rise outside a dairy barn near Agassiz, B.C., in November 2021.

Livestock farmers in B.C. had an exceptionally challenging 2021. After a summer of encroaching forest fires and a record-breaking heat dome, the year ended with catastrophic floods followed by extreme cold. Fraser Valley farmers were forced to dump 7.5 million litres of raw milk in November when shipping routes were destroyed by flooding, which also killed 428 dairy cows.

Across the country, dairy farmers also dumped milk early in the pandemic — more than 30 million litres in the year ending July 31, 2020, according to one analysis — when demand plummeted due to restaurant closures and other system shocks.
Planning a just transition

We see animal-free dairy as possibly having some environmental and food security benefits, but with some trade-offs.

If cellular agriculture competes with conventional dairy in Canada, what would the impact be on dairy farmers? What would happen to the cows? To the farms? To the supply management system in general?

Addressing these questions is critical for developing policy that enables transitions to food systems with lower environmental and carbon footprints while ensuring harms and benefits are distributed equitably — what’s known as the just transition.

Much of our understanding of these just transitions comes from the energy sector, where coal mines have closed and oil production is declining as renewable energy becomes more available and less expensive, changing economies and forcing fossil fuel workers to find other work.

Canada recently developed a just transition task force to look for ways to reduce the livelihood disruptions that come with phasing out coal. The federal government has also recently initiated consultations for just transition legislation that would direct resources to communities negatively impacted by the transition towards a low-carbon future.

Just transition policies for cellular agriculture could encourage farmers to transition into animal-free dairy production through infrastructure transition grants, support with licensing new technologies, biodiversity conservation and carbon credits for land sparing, sanctuary planning for current dairy farms and land back incentives to provide pathways for agriculture towards decolonization.

It’s unclear how soon Canadian dairy farmers will face competition from cellular agriculture, although some have suggested U.S. beef and dairy sector revenues will decline nearly 90 per cent by 2035.

Is it reasonable to expect Canadian dairy farmers will make way for cellular dairy? 

Or is up to policy-makers, industry leaders and food systems organizers to ensure this transition leads to a food system that is more sustainable, but also just?

Yadira Tejeda Saldana, research collaborations director at New Harvest, co-authored this article.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.


Evan Bowness receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and Future Skills Centre Canada.

Robert Newell receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and Future Skills Centre Canada.

Sarah-Louise Ruder receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and Future Skills Centre Canada.