For No Particularly Compelling Reason, the Far-Left Wants Fraser Institute Blood

DeSmogBlog wants the Fraser Institute audited because they hate its politics -- and its success

Ever since the federal government -- in particular the Canadian Revenue Agency -- started to investigate the funding activities of far-left organiations like Tides Canada and the organizations they fund, Canada's far-left has been losing its collective mind.


The jig, as it turns out, is up. They thought they had found the perfect way to cheat the system, and use the tax benefits accorded to charitable organizations to fund their political activities. Now, becuase people have finally started paying attention to the gross abuses of the Income Tax Act,

The money laundering practices of Tides Canada, as well as the openly partisan activities of the David Suzuki Foundation, have drawn attention and fire because they are abuses of the law.

But when plumbing through the complaints writers like Jeff Gailus and David Climenhaga (who Gailus cites in his hitpiece), it becomes clear that it really comes down to one thing and one thing alone: that they don't like the Fraser Institute's political views, and that is the sole basis of their complaint. As mentioned here before, they also deeply resent it for its success.

In the great tradition of left wing nut jobs everywhere, Gailus turns to other left-wing work in order to justify his definition of the Fraser Institute as an "inerently political oragnization." In particular, he quotes Simon Fraser University professor Simon Gutstein accordingly: "The Fraser Institute is a small cog in a global wheel of reaction designed to roll back the democratic gains of the 20th century."

Aside from being pure nonsense, this definition is also politically-loaded. Which should come as no surprise whatsoever -- Gailus' entire article is deliberately designed to be politically loaded, Which would be OK, if he weren't targetting the Fraser Institute for an entirely baseless and vexatious audit.

For one thing, when writing his column, Gailus clearly never bothered to research what activities are permitted under the Income Tax Act, and which are not. The resulting revelations are very illuminating, and very clearly do not support his argument.

For example, Gailus points to comments by former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein that his government followed the policy recommendations of the Fraser Institute. And yet, according to the Canadian Revenue Agency, this doesn't impact on the Fraser Institute's charitable status: "When a political party or candidate for public office supports a policy that is also supported by a charity, the charity is not prevented from promoting this policy." That doesn't change once a particular party or candidate -- in this case, Klein -- is in office, provided they haven't endorsed or supported that particular candidate.

Charitable organziations are allowed to take positions on issues of public interest, so long as:

1. it does not explicitly connect its views to any political party or candidate for public office;
2. the issue is connected to its purposes;
3. its views are based on a well-reasoned position;
4. public awareness campaigns do not become the charity's primary activity.

The full extent of Gailus' take on this particular matter is that he disagrees with the conclusions that the Fraser Institute reaches on various subjects -- including right-to-work legislation, election spending laws, supply-management and the administration of Canadian environmental law -- and ergo he denies that they could be "well-reasoned."

It's just another piece in his demagogic Jenga game. Gailus argues that the Fraser Institute should be audited for the sole reason of -- get this -- he doesn't like the Fraser Institute. That's pretty much it.

It's a shocking analysis that basically amounts to "rules be damned, they should be auited because I disagree with them." And if this -- someone disagreeing with a particular think tank --became the basis for denying charitable status to think tanks, it wouldn't stop at the Fraser Institute, no matter how much Gailus may fantasize that it would.

By the standard he would like to apply to the Fraser Institute, Gailus' test of chairtability would also inevitably sink the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Pembina Institute, the Parkland Institute, and especially the Broadbent Institute. None of Canada's left-wing think tanks would stand a chance. The Climenhaga/Gailus test would shut each and every one of them down. It would, but fortunately this is not the test the CRA will use in relation to Tides Canada, in relation to the David Suzuki foundation, or in relation, and would not use in relation to the Fraser Institute or Ethical Oil (the latter of which the CRA would be largely disinterested in because it's not a registered charity) if it did decide to audit them.

Gailus' work amounts to nothing more than the kind of fact-free analysis that has driven a certain panic among the far-left about the Fraser Institute. Before this, it was the yellow journalism of Gerald Caplan and the Vancouver Observer, pointing out that the Fraser Institute received $500,000 in funding from the Koch foundation, but never actually bothered to contact the Fraser Institute to find out what the money was used for.

For the record, the Koch foundation grant was in support of the Fraser Institute's annual economic freedom index. Extremely innocuous stuff, except to those on the left who despise economic freedom because it impedes their ideological goals.

With the left becoming more and more frantic as more and more of the liberties they've taken with the rules come to light, no one should expect the witch hunt against the Fraser Institute to fade quietly -- or any time soon. The best anyone can do is to continue to counter those trying to lead the charge against the Fraser Intitute, and continue challenging them to explain just what they think is wrong.

More often than not, they can't name a single thing. When some, like Jeff Gailus, attempt to do so, they inevitably come up empty. Which is forever a further reminder of what this is about:

The Fraser Institute hasn't broken any rules. They just hate it for its opinions, and resent it for its success.

Why the Yellow Journalists of the Left Are So Obsessed WIth the Fraser Institute

They just don't like its politics -- and that's about it

Ever since the Canadian government started more closely scrutinizing the activities of left-wing organizations like Tides Canada -- most importantly, how they use their charitable status -- the Canadian far-left has lost its collective mind.

Or maybe it had always lost its collective mind. It's hard to tell.

But the truth is that this isn't really about the Fraser Institute. Not really. They're trying to make it about the Fraser Institute, but that's just a not-so-clever distraction. In reality, this whole issue is about how left-wing "charitable organizations" have misused their charitable status and broken the rules.

In reality, it all started with Vivian Krause.

It was Krause who was intrepid enough to dig through the tax returns of various far-left "charitable organizations," and disovered something: that they were devoting an awful lot of their resources not to conducting charitable work, but to political activities.

In particular, Krause highlighted the miseeds of Tides Canada. Among other things, this included giving big money grants to various Canadian groups for a grand anti-"Tarsands" campaign. It also included a rather cozy relationship between Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and longtime Tides Canada vice-Chairman Joel Solomon.

They're very disconcerting relevations that naturally led to a Canada Revenue Agency investigation of Tides Canada.

And so the far-left has turned its attention to the Fraser Institute. In the last post on this blog, I attributed this to an eye-for-an-eye mentality among the Canadian far-left. But then the question remains: why the Fraser Institute?

There's nothing quite like getting it in their own words: because they despise the political beliefs on which the Fraser Institute was founded, and because they resent its success.

In a long, lingering article on the issue, Vancouver Observer "reporter" Jenny Uechl never strays beyond this simple thesis: the Koch foundation gives money to the Fraser Institute because they share a common political outlook. And because the Koch brothers' political beliefs are bad, the Fraser Institute is therefore bad. No real explanation of why, but the frantic tenor of the article is so overwhelming it reads like it was written from a feinting couch.

The Fraser Institute gives scholarships -- the horror! The Fraser Institute holds seminars -- what an outrage! The Fraser Institute offers internships -- how dare they! And despite the fact that all of these things are well within the bounds of what the Income Tax Act defines as charitable activity -- with an obvious focus on education -- it's all paraded about as if it were somehow improper.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Uechl also obviously resents the Fraser Institute for its success. Blowing her dog whistle so hard she risks shooting her eyes out of it like blowdarts, Uechl reads the roll call of successful conservative activists -- and favoured targets of the left -- like Ezra Levant, Katryn Marshall and Danielle Smith, all of whom have gone on to greater roles within the conservative movement.

But more than anything, Uechl resents the Fraser Institute's success compared to its equivalents on the political left. With a certain bitterness she notes that the Fraser Institute annually raises as much as $10.8 million in revenue -- compared to a mere $1.7 for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Never mind that the Kochs' contribution of $500,000 over several years is but a drop in the Fraser Institute bucket -- apparently the Koch foundation supporting the research of an organization they clearly agree with is some kind of travesty. Beyond her resentment of the Fraser Institute's success, Uechl can't explain quite how.

But this is how yellow journalism and dog whistle politics works. It doesn't appeal to the rational minds of its target audience, and it doesn't really care for facts or logic. It's meant to envoke deep, gutteral, emotional reactions. It's a form of journalism that makes itself well at home in the realm of the irrational and the small-minded.

Which is why no one should expect any kind of a rational explanation for why the far-left seems to think that an organization that follows the rules should be punished anyway. That's just not what this is about, and it never has been.

How Yellow Journalism Vilified the Innocent... and How the Left Loved It

Facts, issues be damned -- the far-left is out for blood

Anyone who has ever spent a significant amount of time observing the left -- especially the far-left -- can easily conclude one thing: they don't like getting caught.

The farther left they are, the less they like being caught. And the more virulently they respond when they do get caught.

So when conservatives began to catch onto Tides Canada and its abuses of Canadian tax law to fund far-left political organizations with tax-deductible donations, it was only natural that the far-left's response would be both virulent and impotent.

Naturally, they would dig under any rock in sight in an attempt to identify conservative groups that they could tell people were also breaking the rules, regardless of whether or not those groups were actually breaking the rules. And so they chose the most predictable of targets: the Fraser Institute.

The left has hated -- nay, despised -- the Fraser Institute for years. The Fraser Institute is a continual source of quality research that consistently disagrees with the left. And so, in the narrow mind of every far-left zealot in Canada, the Fraser Institute is a front for the Conservative Party.

Never mind that nothing could be further from the truth; the Fraser Institute has proven to be as much a critic of the Harper Conservatives as of anyone else -- excepting the NDP, with whom the Fraser Institute can be expected to readily disagree.  And for good reason.


But that doesn't matter. The left is desperate to change the channel, to direct attention away from Tides Canada's funneling of money collected under the guise of being a charity into the coffers of political groups which would never be able to pass for a charity under Canada's tax laws -- organizations like PETA, The Tyee, and the Canadian Youth Climate Congress, among others.


The attack on the Fraser Institute began about a month ago, when the Vancouver Observer -- a far-left rag if there ever was one -- reported that the Fraser Institute had received donations from the Koch Foundation. Operated by US billionaires Charles and David Koch, the Koch Foundation has funded various conservative organizations. Often the Koch Foundation does indeed fund open political activity, but in the case of the Fraser Institute -- which engages in no such activity -- they were funding research projects.


Unlike the various left-wing organizations that received funding from Tides Canada, often coming from foreign donors, the Fraser Institute is not an advocacy group. It's a think tank. It does research and puts on events like student seminars. It's goal is to educate the public. Certainly, The Tyee could attempt to make the same claim, but when it received funds from Tides Canada, Tides Canada listed that grant as "Tarsands Campaign" in its tax returns.


If conservatives were scrutinizing the Parkland Institute or the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, perhaps the Fraser Institute would at least appear to be an appropriate target. At least it's actually the same thing as the organizations currently under scrutiny.


It's a predictable response from the left. With the Canada Revenue Agency already auditing Tides Canada, it seems inevitable that Tides Canada is going to lose its charitable status. So instead of examining their own practices and deciding whether or not the money laundering carried out through Tides Canada's charitable status was a good idea, their response is to try to draw some blood: to demand that the Fraser Institute be stripped of its charitable status.


It's childish, but that's pretty much what anyone should expect from these people.


Beyond the childishness of it, it's actually rather astonishing. In the face of the prospect that a far-left financial clearing house is about to lose its ability to help the far-left cheat, their solution is that the Fraser Institute be punished for not having broken any rules. Astonishing.


I've taken it upon myself to ask various left-wingers who complain about the funds the Fraser Institute received from the Koch Foundation just what they think the Fraser Institute has done wrong. Almost invariably they have no answer at all. They mumble something about "hypocrisy", then shuffle off into the twaddle of the Twitterverse where they belong.


But even in terms of "hypocrisy", these are people who just don't get it. They never have. This issue isn't just about taking funds from foreign organizations, but taking funds from foreign organizations and then campaigning to put Canadians out of work. And breaking the rules while they're at it.


It would certainly be interesting to know just what research the Koch Foundation issued grants for, the Fraser Institute has broken no laws, done nothing wrong, and is under no obligation to share that information, even if they probably should.


So enter the Globe and Mail's Gerald Caplan. Clearly frustrated that the Vancouver Observer's yellow journalism has gained absolutely no traction outside of the far-left, Caplan waited a whole month before he reported those "revelations" in his column for the Globe and Mail. For his own part, he took it upon himself to draw up a list of the Koch brothers' perceived sins, and attempt to make the Fraser Institute seem guilty by association. Frustrated with the inability of yellow journalism to turn the tide of public scrutiny in favour of the left and against organizations that have done nothing to warrant that scrutiny, Caplan simply reproduced the same yellow journalism at a larger paper.


It's sad that Caplan can think of nothing better to do with his soapbox than to attempt to villify an organization has done absolutely nothing wrong; sadder still that his editors didn't crumple his column up and toss it into the nearest wastebasket where it belongs -- or at least make judicious use of their delete key.


For their own part, the left can be counted on to wail at the injustice of the Fraser Institute being able to use its charitable status to do the things that charitable organizations in Canada are allowed to do, and retreat into silence when asked precisely what they think the Fraser Institute has done wrong.