Roger Douglas and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

I want to pay particular tribute to Peter Holle. I’ve known Peter for a long time. I appreciate his leadership, not just in organizing this event today, but also in providing me his advice over many years, and in giving the strong direction behind the growth of this institute. Stephen Harper (1)

In the Acknowledgements to the book, Unfinished Business, Roger Douglas writes; "I am also grateful to Peter Holle from Canada for his observations." (2)

Peter Holle is the founder and president of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a western "think tank", that claims to be non-partisan, but would appear to be just part of the infrastructure of the far right movement.

This is a list of their Advisory Board members and you will see that one of those members is Roger Douglas, the man who turned New Zealand inside out with his horrendous slash and burn polices. From FPP:

Sir Roger Douglas was Finance Minister in New Zealand's Labour Government from 1984 to 1988. Sir Roger was responsible for one of the most comprehensive restructuring program ever attempted by a government anywhere. The program included cutting income tax rates in half, deregulating wide sectors of the New Zealand economy, ending farm and business subsidies, and restructuring and privatizing most state owned enterprises. Most significantly, Sir Roger overhauled the operating philosophy of government agencies and departments to make them run as competition-oriented, bottom line business enterprises that are fully accountable for resources they receive from taxpayers. Sir Roger retired from politics in 1990 and now operates an international consulting firm based from Auckland, New Zealand where he lives. In 2008 he was re-elected to the New Zealand parliament with the party he founded, the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers.

Sounds good. But they fail to mention the devastation his policies created.

Douglas was also the driving force behind Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, Stephen Harper and Preston Manning, and it would appear that he is still helping to shape neoconservative policy.

Frontier Centre For Public Policy

The FPP was founded by Peter Holle, the man who according to Harper himself, provided him with advice over the years. He also assisted Roger Douglas with his book Unfinished Business.

The Centre claims to nonpartisan, so that they can operate as not for profit, allowing them to accept donations without paying taxes, while they prop up the Reform-Conservative government.

According to Source Watch, with information provided on the FPP site:

"Independent think tanks receive their funding exclusively from non-governmental sources. This insulates them from the political pressures that frequently discourage publicly funded research groups from exploring sensitive issues," the think tank's website states. "The Centre does not accept any funding from governments to maintain its independent and fresh perspective on public policy," it states. In 2008, 10% of the think tank's funding was from corporations with a further 67% from unspecified foundations.

It is believed that much of the corporate funding they mention, is from the oil and gas sector. And according to Tasha Kheiriddin and, Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Adam Daifallah, a member of the National Post editorial board; one of the foundations that provided seed money and future capital, was the Donner Foundation.

Because private money is so scarce in Canada, even a small reduction in funds can have an important impact on the well-being of the conservative cause. Such is the case with the Donner Canadian Foundation, the lifeblood of conservative research in this country. A decade ago, with a mission to “encourage individual responsibility and private initiative to help Canadians solve their social and economic problems,” and an annual giving budget of over $5 million, the Donner made a huge difference. From 1993 to 1999, under the leadership of executive directors Patrick Luciani and Devon Cross, it provided seed money to start a host of topnotch free-market think-tanks across Canada: the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the Montreal Economic Institute, the Frontier Institute, the Society for Advancing Educational Research (dedicated to promoting charter schools), the conservative The Next City magazine (now defunct), and Energy Probe (a free market–oriented environmental organization). (3)

The chairman of the Donner Canadian Foundation is Allan Gotlieb. Both Gotlieb and Harper were guest speakers at FPP's 10th Anniversary, $ 150.00 a plate, gala. The Winnipeg Labour Defense League, protested at the Frontier Centre during this event, because of FPP's promotion of damaging policies, including:

... privatized child-care; a frozen minimum wage; privatized utilities for Hydro and Water; a "flat tax" where those with lower incomes pay the most; even more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations; no pay equity for women or other discriminated groups; no marketing boards such as the Wheat Board to protect farmers and consumers from the big Agri-monopolies. (4)

So if the Donner Canadian Foundation is the "lifeblood of conservative research in this country" and Donner provides funding to the FPP; remind me how they are not partisan.

Should they really be allowed to operate as not for profit, or have to declare themselves a third-party advertiser for the Conservative Party of Canada? I think you already know my answer.

Footnotes

1. Address to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, by Stephen Harper, MP Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Leader of the Opposition, May 17, 2004

2. Unfinished Business, By: Roger Douglas, Random House, 1993, ISBN: 1869411994

3. Rescuing Canada's Right, By: Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin, Western Standard, November 8, 2004

4. What is the Frontier Centre for Public Policy? People's Voice, June 2009

How Roger Douglas Became a Friend of Science

As I have been telling the story of Roger Douglas and his influence over the neoconservative movement in Canada, some might believe it's ancient history.

However, Douglas is still very much involved with the Harper government, as an advisory board member of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

According to Policy.ca, they are:

... an independent think tank that received charitable status in April 1999. Its mission is “to develop and popularize policy choices that will help Canada’s prairie region live up to its vast but unrealized economic potential.” The Centre is non-partisan and receives its funding from non-governmental sources. The Centre communicates its research and ideas through policy notes, backgrounders, commentaries, lectures and presentations, the media, and research reports.

Of course they claim to be non-partisan, when it fact they are just part of the infrastructure of Canada's only extreme-right party, now calling themselves the Conservative Party of Canada; but formerly known as Social Credit, the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance.

Another member of the advisory board, is Dr. Timothy Ball, one of Canada's more notorious climate change deniers, and a "scientific advisor" to the Friends of Science.

Roger Douglas is also an outspoken critic of money going to what he refers to as "so-called" global warming.



So let's break down this non-partisan group.

Timothy Ball

On Sherwin Arnott's blog, he discusses meeting Dr. Ball and discussing global warming with him. But when Arnott questioned his theories, Ball called him a Socialist. This immediately peaked his interest so he asked the good Dr. if he worked for the Fraser Institute. He denied that he did and immediately walked away.

But a quick search proved that he was lying:

Turns out that Tim Ball is paid by the Friends of Science that is funded through the University of Calgary Science Education Fund, set up by Barry Cooper who is friends with Stephen Harper, which is funded by the Oil patch. He’s also connected to the National Resources Stewardship Program, Tom Harris with APCO Public Relations, High Park Advocacy Group, Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association. He’s effectively a paid mouthpiece with fewer credentials than he and the Fraser Institute claims he has. But I met him and he’s quasi famous and so I guess I met an almost famous guy! And I made him. That was my moment of glory.

Don Gutstein provides a great summary here.

The Frontier Centre has regular speakers closely connected to the neoconservative movement, including Nigel Hannaford, Harper's new speech writer, and Tasha Kheiriddin, the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Jason Kenney's old haunt; and co-author of a book Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution.

Last spring, the Winnipeg Labour Defense League, protested at the Frontier Centre, where a guest speaker would be making a presentation at a $150.00 a plate dinner. The speaker's name was Stephen Harper.

On May 19, dozens of people responded to a call from the newly formed Winnipeg Labour Defence League to protest the latest visit to the city by Stephen Harper. The Prime Minister was the star speaker at a gala fundraising dinner for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

... The FCPP wants: privatized child-care; a frozen minimum wage; privatized utilities for Hydro and Water; a "flat tax" where those with lower incomes pay the most; even more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations; no pay equity for women or other discriminated groups; no marketing boards such as the Wheat Board to protect farmers and consumers from the big Agri-monopolies.

The FCPP has a special place for Aboriginal peoples. In a racist way, it constantly attacks "poor governance" in Aboriginal nations, forgetting the truly massive scale of corporate sleaze and corruption. Failing to recognize the colonial theft of Aboriginal land, it promotes the illusion that Aboriginal peoples are on a level playing field with the non-Aboriginal corporations that own and dominate Canada's land and resources. It attacks the very concept of `national rights,' rights which are fully enjoyed by the Canadian state, but whose denial relegates Aboriginal nations to a position of inequality, humiliation and subjection ... (2)

Friends of Science

The Globe and Mail would eventually uncover the fact that this group is actually funded by the oil companies, including Imperial Oil, where Harper's father worked. And their list of members reads like Stephen Harper's Christmas card list.

But if that wasn't bad enough, Harper also named two prominent climate change deniers to his science board:

Already alarmed over funding cuts to basic research, scientists say two appointments in particular are worrisome. Mark Mullins, the executive director of the conservative-leaning Fraser Institute — and a former adviser to the Canadian Alliance Party — was recently appointed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which funds university research projects that have included studies on climate change.

Dr. Mullins is an economist and critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sanctioned scientific body that has authored warnings of floods, famine and extinctions that triggered political efforts around the world to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

... On the same day Dr. Mullins was appointed to NSERC, April 23, another skeptic of global warming was appointed to the board of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which funds large research projects. John Weissenberger is a close friend of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a former chief of staff in the Harper government and a geologist who works for Husky Energy in Alberta.

Dr. Weissenberger has written opinion pieces in the media and on his Internet blog expressing his "skepticism about global warming." That and other comments by the two appointees on the public record were compiled by NDP researchers and verified by The Globe and Mail. (1)

I've mentioned John Weissenberger before. He and Harper go back to their days at the University of Calgary, when they both worked on the re-election of Jim Hawkes, for Calgary West.

Roger Douglas must be so proud.

Footnotes:

1. Global warming critics appointed to science board, by: Bill Curry, Globe and Mail, May 11, 2009

2. What is the Frontier Centre for Public Policy? People's Voice, June 2009