Showing posts with label Fraser Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fraser Institute. Show all posts

Friday, 16 July 2010

Attack Parrot™© in full bully mode.

After some judicious prodding by the PMO, the conservative Fraser Institute catapulted a senior economist onto the media stage, in order to regurgitate more speaking points.

When asked how they would ensure even representation across different income and ethnic groups on such surveys without reliable long-form data, Veldhuis questioned why those differences would matter.

“This is what should be worrying average Canadians — this information is used by central planners to plan how to tinker with the lives of Canadians,” he said of the ways in which census data is used. [...]

The Fraser Institute uses long-form data in its school report card rankings, Mr. Veldhuis said, but he believes the short-form census — which will remain mandatory — the voluntary census and other polling, market research and voluntary surveys conducted by private companies will provide more than enough data on Canadians.

"Central planners" - is that Con code-speak for policy-shapers who don't cleave to the ReformaTory party line? And by the way, Veldhuis is a flat-taxer and reactionary analyst of the Calgary School mold.

Are those who share the CMAJ perspective set out in a recent editorial also "central planners"?

"It [long-form census questionnaire] provides accurate and reliable data on social trends and issues, including the determinants of health, such as the relationships among income, gender, education, region, work and other factors that influence access to care and health outcomes."

The CMAJ's position is that the elimination of the long census will cause regional institutions to "lose the only accurate information about the populations they serve."


Of course, Stevie Spiteful's goal to create a Canada that conforms to conservative values is not "tinkering". No, it's more political engineering that will shift power and profits to friends of the Conservative party and will exclude those who aren't ideologically aligned.

And that's why Stevie and his bullies, thugs and hooligans don't want evidence of damage their tactics have wrought documented and recorded.

Sunday, 4 October 2009

MSM: All the facts that fit our agenda

Here we go again with the fake pregnancy centres.

From The Globe and Mail (links added):
The William H. Donner Awards for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services will be presented in Toronto on Oct. 16. The awards are hard to get: More than 500 social services agencies entered this year's competition, which will issue nine prizes worth a total of $60,000.

The Fraser Institute, the Vancouver-based think tank that administers the awards on behalf of the Donner Foundation, subjects contenders to rigorous assessment, grading them on 10 attributes (among them: the volunteers they use and the results they get).

The finalists in the category 'Counselling/Crisis Services' are:
Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre offers support and assistance to anyone "facing an unplanned pregnancy or experiencing post-abortion stress."

London Crisis Pregnancy Centre* in Ontario provides "practical and spiritual help" to women with an unplanned pregnancy, including abortion alternatives.

Sarnia-Lambton Rebound, in Ontario, operates court-approved programs for young people in trouble with the law.

OK, with the frikken Fraser Institute involved, this information about The Donner Canadian Foundation shouldn't come as a surprise:
The Donner Canadian Foundation was established in 1950 and for 43 years was a typical, uncontroversial Canadian charitable fund. In 1993, the conservative American Donner heirs who control the foundation changed its primary focus to that of supporting conservative research. From 1993 to 1999, under the leadership of executive directors Devon Gaffney Cross and then Patrick Luciani, the foundation provided the seed money to start several conservative Canadian think-tanks and publications, and became the "lifeblood of conservative research" in Canada. In 1999, the American Donner heirs who control the foundation began donating more of its money to land and wildlife conservation, international development, medical research and the arts, reducing funding of conservative research (though it is still one of the most generous benefactors to the right in Canada).

It would be nice, wouldn't it, if the dam MSM would mention the little fact that this is not a 'typical, uncontroversial Canadian charitable fund'?

(I left a comment at the Globe link. First time for me and I hadda register. I was so agitated, I didn't proofread properly. From now on, look for comments by 'fer nill'. *headslap*)

BTW, Calgary Pregnancy Care won a Donner award last year.

*That link for the London outfit is just a page-holder without a 'mission' statement. But it is listed here.