The Donner Prize is part of a larger effort to reimagine Canada as a right-wing American Libertarian fantasy - Tim Bousquet, Halifax Examiner:
April 8, 2019 - "The Donner Prize is awarded by the Donner Canadian Foundation, which was founded by William Henry Donner, an American industrialist who made his fortune in tin and steel. In 1929, Donner’s son Joseph died of cancer, and ... William Donner ... 'sold the assets he had in the Donner Steel Company of Buffalo, New York, his final business undertaking, and set aside $2 million for charitable purposes, primarily for cancer research,' explains the McGill Library.
"Donner moved to Montreal in the 1940s. The move was in part motivated by a desire to avoid U.S. income taxes, but Donner was also attracted by the world-leading medical research then going on in that city, and in 1950 he established the Donner Canadian Foundation. Donner died in 1953, but the foundation continued to dole out money, mostly for medical research and mostly in uncontroversial ways, until 1993.
"Then came a sea change. As Thomas Walkom wrote in 1997 for the Toronto Star: ... 'For the first 43 years of its existence, the Donner foundation was a typical Canadian charitable fund, donating its money to the kinds of unconcontroversial mainstream projects that are generally, and often uncritically, deemed worthy — medical research, prison reform, studies on Canadian unity. Now it is known as paymaster to the right, a source of ready cash for the favourite causes of the new, market conservatism'....
"[Walkom] went on to list the myriad right-wing causes the Donner Canadian Foundation funded — including the Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institution for Market Studies (a $515,000 grant 'to look at issues such as privatization of the fishery'), the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (a grant of $286,000 'to fight so-called political correctness at Canadian universities'), among others....
"Patrick Luciani, now acting executive director of the foundation, openly acknowledges the shift. 'We changed emphasis in 1993. It had been a classic Canadian foundation, quite liberal. But the Donner family saw the country going through a fiscal crisis and they wanted to fund projects that looked at more competition and less government'....
"Recipients of last year’s grants from the Donner Canadian Foundation are split between environmental organizations and more clearly identified right-wing political causes. On the environmental side, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society received $93,425 for 'Advancing Marine Protected Areas.' The Nature Conservancy received three grants for regional projects. The World Wildlife Fund received a $50,000 grant.
"Then there are the grants going towards 'Public Policy Research and Education.' Recipients include the Canadian Constitution Foundation ($30,000), which among other things has funded a court challenge to Alberta’s medicare system; Hillsdale College ($17,000) to fund the work of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. — the editor of the right-wing American Spectator magazine; the Fraser Institute ($55,000); among others....
"The Donner family can fund whatever they want. But let’s not go a-gog over the Donner Prize, which is clearly part of a larger effort to reimagine Canada as a right-wing American Libertarian fantasy."
Read more: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/the-donner-prize-is-part-of-a-larger-effort-to-reimagine-canada-as-a-right-wing-american-libertarian-fantasy/
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April 8, 2019 - "The Donner Prize is awarded by the Donner Canadian Foundation, which was founded by William Henry Donner, an American industrialist who made his fortune in tin and steel. In 1929, Donner’s son Joseph died of cancer, and ... William Donner ... 'sold the assets he had in the Donner Steel Company of Buffalo, New York, his final business undertaking, and set aside $2 million for charitable purposes, primarily for cancer research,' explains the McGill Library.
"Donner moved to Montreal in the 1940s. The move was in part motivated by a desire to avoid U.S. income taxes, but Donner was also attracted by the world-leading medical research then going on in that city, and in 1950 he established the Donner Canadian Foundation. Donner died in 1953, but the foundation continued to dole out money, mostly for medical research and mostly in uncontroversial ways, until 1993.
"Then came a sea change. As Thomas Walkom wrote in 1997 for the Toronto Star: ... 'For the first 43 years of its existence, the Donner foundation was a typical Canadian charitable fund, donating its money to the kinds of unconcontroversial mainstream projects that are generally, and often uncritically, deemed worthy — medical research, prison reform, studies on Canadian unity. Now it is known as paymaster to the right, a source of ready cash for the favourite causes of the new, market conservatism'....
"[Walkom] went on to list the myriad right-wing causes the Donner Canadian Foundation funded — including the Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institution for Market Studies (a $515,000 grant 'to look at issues such as privatization of the fishery'), the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (a grant of $286,000 'to fight so-called political correctness at Canadian universities'), among others....
"Patrick Luciani, now acting executive director of the foundation, openly acknowledges the shift. 'We changed emphasis in 1993. It had been a classic Canadian foundation, quite liberal. But the Donner family saw the country going through a fiscal crisis and they wanted to fund projects that looked at more competition and less government'....
"Recipients of last year’s grants from the Donner Canadian Foundation are split between environmental organizations and more clearly identified right-wing political causes. On the environmental side, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society received $93,425 for 'Advancing Marine Protected Areas.' The Nature Conservancy received three grants for regional projects. The World Wildlife Fund received a $50,000 grant.
"Then there are the grants going towards 'Public Policy Research and Education.' Recipients include the Canadian Constitution Foundation ($30,000), which among other things has funded a court challenge to Alberta’s medicare system; Hillsdale College ($17,000) to fund the work of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. — the editor of the right-wing American Spectator magazine; the Fraser Institute ($55,000); among others....
"The Donner family can fund whatever they want. But let’s not go a-gog over the Donner Prize, which is clearly part of a larger effort to reimagine Canada as a right-wing American Libertarian fantasy."
Read more: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/the-donner-prize-is-part-of-a-larger-effort-to-reimagine-canada-as-a-right-wing-american-libertarian-fantasy/
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