The high, hidden cost of green electricity

Adding more solar and wind to the energy supply pushes up the price of electricity for consumers and businesses.

Solar and Wind Power Are Expensive | Fraser Institute | Bjørn Lomborg:

March 25, 2025 - "Global evidence is clear: Adding more solar and wind to the energy supply pushes up the price of electricity for consumers and businesses....  

"[F]rom 2005, the Ontario government began phasing out coal energy and dived headlong into subsidizing wind and solar generation.... From 2005 to 2020 the average, inflation-adjusted cost of electricity doubled from 7.7 cents to 15.3 cents. Since 2019 the Ontario government has subsidized these high costs through a slew of programs like the 'Renewable Cost Shift', lowering the direct pain to ratepayers but simply moving the increasing costs onto the government coffers. Today, this policy costs Ontario more than $6 billion annually...

"A relatively small amount of wind energy costs Ontarians over a billion dollars each year. One peer-reviewed study finds that the economic costs of wind are at least three times their benefits. Only the owners of wind power make any money, whereas the 'losers are primarily the electricity consumers followed by the governments.' Yet, politicians — supported by powerful green energy interests and credulous journalists — keep gaslighting voters claiming green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels....

"At best, this is only true when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. At all other times, their cost is significantly higher. Modern societies need around-the-clock power. The intermittency of solar and wind energy means backup is required, often delivered by fossil fuels. That means citizens end up paying for two power systems: renewables and their backup.... This intermittency can be huge, as when solar power in the Yukon delivered a massive 150 times more electricity to the grid in May 2022 than it did in December 2022. It is also the reason that the real energy costs of solar and wind are far higher than green campaigners claim....

"One study shows that in China, when including the cost of backup power, the real cost of solar power becomes twice as high as that of coal. Similarly, a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows that the real costs of solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark, all of which increasingly rely on solar and wind power, have some of the world’s most expensive electricity.... The International Energy Agency’s latest data from nearly 70 countries from 2022 shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and business energy prices. In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour. For every 10 per cent increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by nearly 8 cents per kWh.... 

"In Germany, electricity costs 43 cents per kWh — much more than twice the Canadian cost, and more than three-times the Chinese price. Germany has installed so much solar and wind that on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70 per cent of Germany’s needs — a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days, when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past couple of months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4 per cent of the daily power Germany needed.... Last month, with cloudy skies and nearly no wind, Germany faced the costliest power prices since the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with wholesale prices reaching a staggering $1.40 per kWh.

"Canada is blessed with plentiful hydro, powering 58 per cent of its electricity. This means that there has been less drive to develop wind and solar, which deliver just 7 per cent. But the urge to virtue signal remains. Indeed, the federal government’s 2023 vision for the electricity system declares that shifting away from fossil fuels is a “scientific and moral imperative” and “the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime”.

"Yet the biggest take-away from the global evidence is that among all the nations in the world ... there is not one that gets much of its power from solar and wind and has low electricity costs.... Instead, there are plenty of nations with lots of green energy and exorbitantly high costs."

Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/solar-and-wind-power-are-expensive

Scientist Destroys Green Energy Narrative w/ Facts in Minutes | Bjørn Lomborg | The Rubin Report | March 4, 2025:

Violent Crime up >40% in Canada since 2014

Between 2014 (a year when Canadian crime rates reached their lowest) and 2022 (the most recent comparable year of data), population-adjusted rates of both violent crime and property crime in Canada have grown to surpass comparable crime rates in the United States.

Study finds violent crime in Canada surged 44% since 2014, worse than US | Western Standard | Western Standard News Services:

November 28, 2024: - "Canada’s violent crime rate has risen sharply, outpacing that of the United States, according to a new Fraser Institute report analyzing crime trends between the two countries. 

"The study revealed a 43.8% increase in Canada’s violent crime rate between 2014 and 2022, reaching 434.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people.... U.S. violent crime rate stood at 380.7 per 100,000 people during the same period, making Canada’s rate 14% higher.

Courtesy Fraser Institute.

"Property crime in Canada has also seen a troubling rise, with the rate climbing 7% to 2,491 crimes per 100,000 people between 2014 and 2022. In contrast, the U.S. property crime rate dropped by 24.1% during the same period, leaving Canada’s property crime rate 27% higher than its southern neighbor. The report noted that Canada’s property crime rate had been lower than the U.S. until 2015, the year Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.

Graph courtesy Fraser Institute.

"Homicide rates in Canada, while still below those in the U.S., have also increased significantly, rising 53.5% between 2014 and 2022....

“'Trudeau’s radical catch-and-release policies have set violent repeat offenders loose on our streets,' read a statement from the Conservative Party on Thursday. The party pledged to reform the justice system by prioritizing jail time for violent repeat offenders over bail, saying Canadians deserve safer communities."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/news/study-finds-violent-crime-in-canada-surged-44-since-2014-worse-than-us/59936

Read study: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/comparing-recent-crime-trends-in-canada-and-us-an-introduction.pdf

Health care wait times at new records in Canada

Canadian patients in 2024 waited longer than ever for medical treatment, finds a new study released by the Fraser Institute.

Canadians faced longest ever health-care wait times in 2024, study finds | National Post | Stewart Lewis:

December 12, 2024 - "Canadians waited longer than ever for medical treatment in 2024, says the Fraser Institute. This year’s edition of its annual survey of physicians from across Canada reports a median wait time of 30 weeks from referral by a family doctor to consultation with a specialist, and then from the consultation to actual treatment. The 30-week wait is the longest ever recorded by the Institute — longer than the 27.7 weeks in 2023, 20.9 weeks in pre-pandemic 2019, and 222 per cent longer than the 9.3 weeks in 1993, when it began tracking wait times.

"'While most Canadians understand that wait times are a major problem, we’ve now reached an unprecedented and unfortunate milestone for delayed access to care,' said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of 'Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2024.' The independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank released the new survey Thursday. 

“'Long wait times can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death,' said Mackenzie Moir, senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and study co-author.

Courtesy Fraser Institute.

"Ontarians seem to be doing best in the country with the shortest median wait time (23.6 weeks, up from 21.6 weeks in 2023). Prince Edward Islanders are not quite so fortunate, recording the longest median wait(77.4 weeks). The Institute notes, however, that data for P.E.I. should be interpreted with caution due to fewer survey responses compared to other provinces.

"The wait time to see a specialist increased from 14.6 weeks in 2023 to 15.0 weeks in 2024. This wait time is 305 per cent longer than it was in 1993 — at 3.7 weeks.... For the second stage, the wait time for treatment increased from 13.1 weeks in 2023 to 15.0 weeks this year. This wait time is 167 per cent longer than in 1993 when it was 5.6 weeks, and 6.3 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically 'reasonable' (8.6 weeks).... 

"Among the various specialties, national median wait times were longest for orthopedic surgery (57.5 weeks) and neurosurgery (46.2 weeks). Meanwhile, the shortest are for radiation (4.5 weeks) and medical oncology treatments (4.7 weeks). For diagnostic tests, wait times were longest for CT scans (8.1 weeks), MRIs (16.2 weeks) and ultrasounds (5.2 weeks).

"It is estimated, across the 10 provinces, that the total number of procedures people waited for in 2024 is 1,543,994. Assuming each person waits for only one procedure, 3.7 per cent of Canadians waited for treatment in 2024....

"Data for this study was collected from Jan. 19 to May 31, 2024. A total of 1,973 responses were received across the 12 specialties surveyed, a response rate of 17.0 per cent.

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadians-faced-longest-ever-health-care-wait-times-in-2024-study-finds

Read report: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/waiting-your-turn-2024.pdf

Red flags in Liberals' gun legislation

'Red flag' gun ban provisions in the Trudeau government's Bill C-21 are ripe for abuse. 

Proposed federal firearms legislation includes ‘red flag’ rules ripe for abuse | Fraser Institute | Gary Mauser:

October 24, 2023 - "Last year the Trudeau government tabled Bill C-21, which passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate for examination. If approved by the Senate, it will become the law of the land. This latest attempt to 'curb gun violence' is a grab bag of measures including gun bans and new 'red flag' provisions.... 

"[A]ccording to the bill, anyone — not just a peace officer, as is now the case — could apply to a court for an emergency firearms prohibition order (i.e. red flag) to immediately remove firearms from 'an individual who may pose a danger to themselves or others' or 'an individual who may be at risk of providing access to firearms to another person who is already subject to a weapons prohibition order' rather than the present standard, which is anyone who poses 'an imminent threat to themselves or others.' This new language would lower the bar for confiscating firearms, making it much easier for complaints to be made.

"To protect the safety of 'red flag' applicants, section 110.1 of the bill gives a judge the option to close a 'red flag' hearing to the “public and media' and 'seal the court documents for up to 30 days, or remove any information that could identify the applicant for any period of time that the judge deems necessary, including on a permanent basis.' And the bill does not include any appeal process, which would represent an important change because currently Canadians can appeal revocations and have their firearms returned. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand how this type of process could invite abuse. 

"So why did the Trudeau government add these 'red flag' provisions to the bill? According to the government, they’re needed so police can seize firearms from dangerous individuals in an emergency. But police already have the authority to act immediately with or without a warrant to seize firearms when there’s a genuine concern about public safety—specifically, section 117.04 of the Criminal Code already permits disarming anyone who poses 'an imminent threat to themselves or others.' And anyone who believes a person poses such a threat can call 9-1-1 or 1-800-731-4000 to 'report a spousal or public safety concern.' The police are, by law, required to respond. And under the Firearms Act, the Chief Firearms Officer can also revoke a firearm licence and order firearms confiscated.

"Finally, even if you think these proposed 'red flag' provisions are appropriate, they’d likely be ineffective in an emergency. Why? Because applicants have to apply to a court for an order to remove a firearm, and due to our under-resourced and backlogged court systems, would face considerable delays before appearing before a judge.

"The Trudeau government has not made a compelling argument for this legislation. But rather than looking for more ways to seize firearms from law-abiding Canadians, the government should focus its efforts on violent criminals and actual gun crime."

Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/proposed-federal-firearms-legislation-includes-red-flag-rules-ripe-for-abuse

The "Red Flag" Gun Ban Provisions In Bill C-21 Are Ripe For Abuse - A Lawyer Explains | Runkle Of The Bailey | February 19, 2021: 

Taxes cost Canadians more than food and shelter

In 2022, the average Canadian family spent over 25% more on taxes than on food, shelter, and clothing combines.  

Taxes versus the Necessities of Life: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2023 edition | Fraser Institute | Jake Fuss and Grady Munro:

August 22, 2023 - "The Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2022. Including all types of taxes, that bill has increased by 2,778% since 1961.

• Taxes have grown much more rapidly than any other single expenditure for the average Canadian family: expenditures on shelter increased by 1,880%, food by 870%, and clothing by 654% from 1961 to 2022.
• The 2,778% increase in the tax bill has also greatly outpaced the increase in the Consumer Price Index (863%), which measures the average price that consumers pay for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, education, and other items.
• The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes (45.3%) than it does on basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing combined (35.6%). By comparison, 33.5% of the average family’s income went to pay taxes in 1961 while 56.5% went to basic necessities.
• In 2022, the average Canadian family earned an income of $106,430 and paid total taxes equaling $48,199 (45.3%). In 1961, the average family had an income of $5,000 and paid a total tax bill of $1,675 (33.5%).

The Fraser Institute is an independent, non-partisan research and educational organization based in Canada. We have offices in Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Read more: https://fraserinstitute.org/studies/taxes-versus-necessities-of-life-canadian-consumer-tax-index-2023-edition

Canadians pay for nothing to 'fight climate change'

We're paying money for nothing to 'fight' climate change | Toronto Sun | Lorrie Goldstein:

June 3, 2023 - "Making people pay more to heat their homes in Atlantic Canada isn’t going to stop wildfires in Alberta, or for that matter in Atlantic Canada. Subsidizing electric vehicle battery plants in Ontario isn’t going to stop flooding in British Columbia. This is the logical fallacy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government engage in when they link their carbon pricing regime and massive subsidies for so-called clean technology to addressing climate change. There’s no link.... Canada could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero tomorrow and it would have no effect on the weather in Canada.

"Rarely is this mentioned. When it is, the Liberals go berserk, as they did, when Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux noted in his recent report on the costs to Canadians of the federal government’s clean fuel regulations, 'Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change.'

"According to the federal government’s own data, Canada’s emissions in 2019 were 724 million tonnes — 1.5% of global emissions, down from 1.8% in 2005 — while global emissions during the same period increased 23.6%, from 38,669 million tonnes to 48,117 million tonnes. The highest-emitting country in 2019, according to the same data, was China with 12,705 million tonnes, or 26.4% of global emissions, up 74.8% from 2005.

"As Kenneth Green noted in a recent Fraser Institute report, which estimated the federal emissions cap will cost the Canadian economy more than $44 billion in 2030, even if Canada eliminated all emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, 'the reduction would equal four-tenths of 1% of global emissions.'

"Environment Canada, always ready to guilt-trip Canadians on climate change, reported that 'in 2019, Canada was the highest GHG-emitting country per capita among the top 10 emitting countries with 19.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.' That put Canada ahead of, in descending order, the U.S., Russia, Iran, Japan, China, European Union (27 countries), Brazil, Indonesia and India. Except comparing Canada to other nations by selectively using emissions per capita is highly misleading, because Canada is the second-largest and second-coldest country on earth with a relatively small population.

"By contrast, when emissions are measured per square kilometres, Canada drops to 140th place among the world’s 215 countries and regions identified by the United Nations when it reported on the global data in 2007. When environmental consultants Sustainable Business Consulting looked at the same metric in 2019 using 2017 data, Canada was the 129th largest emitter out of 184 countries, with lower emissions per square kilometre than any of the world’s top 10 emitters, save for Brazil.....

"The single largest contributor to global emissions is using coal to generate electricity. Our federal government says Canada gets 6% of its electricity from coal, a 55% decrease since 2011. By contrast, China gets almost 60% of its electricity from coal. India gets 70% of its electricity from coal.

"The Trudeau government’s carbon pricing regime and climate change policies, which are adding to the financial hardships faced by Canadians in tough economic times, are based on the logic that we have to do something, so this is something. What it ignores is that the solution to lowering emissions, to be effective, has to be a global one. Without that, Canadians are and will be paying money for nothing to ‘fight’ climate change for years to come."

Read more: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-were-paying-money-for-nothing-to-fight-climate-change

Read Fraser Institute report: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/canadas-ghg-cap-on-the-oil-and-gas-industry-is-all-pain-with-no-gain

GUILBEAULT PLAYS ABSURD BLAME GAME: Attacks Conservatives, but not China, on climate change | Toronto Sun | Lorrie Goldstein | June 7, 2023: 

Canadian plastics ban not good for environment

The Trudeau government's ban on single-use plastics is an expensive measure that will actually create more garbage and impose higher costs on Canadians.

Ottawa’s plastics ban is bad for the environment | Fraser Forum | Elmira Aliakbari & Julio Mejía:

 (Appeared in the National Post, March 23, 2023) - "The Alberta and Saskatchewan governments recently appeared before the Federal Court of Canada to essentially challenge the Trudeau government’s ban on six types of single-use plastics, which went into effect late last year. Citing an ocean pollution crisis, the Trudeau government also plans to gradually ban the manufacturing, importation and sale of checkout bags, cutlery, food service ware, stir sticks and straws by 2025, purportedly to improve the environment and deliver economic benefits to Canadians. But in reality, the plastic ban is an expensive measure that will actually create more garbage and impose higher costs on Canadians....

"Canada contributes an estimated 0.02 per cent of all plastic in the world’s oceans. Meanwhile, nearly 90 per cent of ocean plastic comes from Asia and Africa, with five countries—Philippines, India, Malaysia, China and Indonesia—accounting for the majority the world’s ocean plastic pollution. Therefore, eliminating Canada’s plastic waste will have an undetectable impact on global ocean plastic pollution.

"More importantly, despite claims from Ottawa, Canada doesn’t have a plastic waste crisis. According to the federal government’s own report, 99 per cent of the country’s plastic waste is already disposed of safely through recycling, incinerating and environmentally-friendly landfills. If you’re concerned about the remaining 1 per cent, it’s worth noting that according to the government’s own sources, none of the six types of now-banned single-use plastics are among the top five items found on shorelines....

"In fact, as acknowledged by the federal government’s own analysis, banning single-use plastics will actually increase waste generation rather than reduce it. According to the analysis, while the ban will remove 1.5 million tonnes of plastics from 2023 to 2032, it will almost double that tonnage in substitutes such as paper, wood and aluminum over the same period. In other words, the ban will increase, not decrease, the amount of net garbage in Canada.

"To make matters worse, according to the government’s Strategic Environmental Assessment, plastic substitutes “typically have higher climate change impacts” including higher greenhouse gases (GHG) and lower air quality. Indeed, according to multiple studies, single-use plastic substitutes such as paper require more energy to transport, feature higher smog formation and ozone depletion potential, demand more water and energy to be produced, and result in higher GHG emissions. Simply put, the plastic ban harms, not helps, the environment....

"According to the federal government’s own estimates, the plastic ban will save $616 million in avoided clean-up expenses over the next 10 years but will cost around $2 billion over the same period, due to the management of additional waste discussed above, ban enforcement and the forgone profit opportunity for manufacturers. The cost of the ban surpasses the benefit by a 3-to-1 ratio.  

"Overall, the plastic ban is a costly measure that turns a small environmental problem into a bigger one. If the Trudeau government wants to do something about the small percentage of plastic that escapes into the environment, it should improve coordination with municipal waste-handling systems rather than impose and enforce a costly nationwide ban, which literally hurts more than it helps."

Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/ottawas-plastics-ban-is-bad-for-the-environment

Is Canada's single-use plastic ban truly environmentally friendly? | Global News | December 21, 2022:

Wasteful Covid spending will have cost Canadians more than $100 Billion by 2033

The Trudeau government's wasteful Covid relief spending, on CERB and other bailouts that were poorly targeted or given to ineligible recipients, will have cost Canadian taxpayers more than $110 Billion by 2033, Canada's Fraser Institute reports  

Illustration courtesy the Fraser Institute.

Ottawa’s wasteful COVID spending will cost taxpayers more than $110 billion by 2032/33 | Fraser Institute (news release): 

June 27, 2023 - "The total cost of the federal government’s wasteful COVID spending — money that was poorly targeted or sent to ineligible recipients — will eclipse $110 billion by 2032/33, partly as a result of higher debt interest costs, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. 

"'Taxpayers will bear the costs of Ottawa’s wasteful COVID spending for years to come in the form of higher debt and interest costs,' said Jake Fuss, associate director of fiscal policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Fiscal Waste During the Pandemic in Canada and the United States.

"The study finds that Canada’s federal COVID spending — which totaled $359.7 billion — has added $8.3 billion to present-day interest costs on the country’s national debt. Crucially, an estimated 25 per cent of Canada’s COVID spending ($89.9 billion) was wasted in the form of overpayments, money being sent to ineligible recipients, and/or those that weren’t in genuine need.

"Of the $8.3 billion in annual debt interest costs arising from COVID spending, $2.1 billion of that can be attributed to the wasteful spending. Over the next ten years, the total cost of the federal government’s wasteful COVID spending will be $111.0 billion, including both the $89.9 billion in wasteful spending and $21.1 billion in ongoing debt interest costs to service the debt from such wasteful spending.

"The study also calculates the cost of wasteful COVID spending in the United States. Including higher debt interest costs, the total wasted spending in the US will total an estimated $1.56 trillion by 2032/33.

“Deficit-financed programs during COVID will impose significant costs on taxpayers for years to come, making it all the more important that programs are properly targeted and taxpayers dollars aren’t wasted in the future,” said Tegan Hill, a senior economist with the Fraser Institute and study co-author.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/06/27/2695046/0/en/Fraser-Institute-News-Release-Ottawa-s-wasteful-COVID-spending-will-cost-taxpayers-more-than-110-billion-by-2032-33.html

Read study: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/fiscal-waste-during-the-pandemic-in-canada-and-the-united-states

Canada falls out of Human Freedom Index top 10

According to the 2022 Human Freedom Index published by Canada's Fraser Institute and the USA's Cato Institute, Canada dropped out of the world\s top 10 freest countries in 2020, falling from seventh-freest nation to 13th.   

Canada drops out of top 10 ‘freest’ countries | Western Standard - Christopher Oldcorn:

Jan 26, 2023 - "Canada dropped out of the top 10 freest countries in the world, according to a new study released by Canada’s Fraser Institute and America’s Cato Institute. The last time Canada did not rank in the top 10 of the Human Freedom Index (HFI) was back in 2012. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government limited Canadians' movements, freedom of expression and assembly, and other freedoms, according to Fraser Institute Fellow and co-author of this year’s HFI Fred McMahon ... 

"The HFI measures personal freedom across several factors, including 'the rule of law, safety and security, identity and relationships (i.e. the freedom to choose your relationship partner), freedom of movement, speech, assembly, and religion … alongside economic freedom, the ability of individuals to make their own economic decisions.' Canada rank[ed] the 13th freest country in the world based on 2020 data, which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions, dropping from sixth in 2019. Switzerland maintained its top spot, followed by New Zealand, Estonia, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, and Syria are the five least-freest countries."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/business/canada-drops-out-of-top-10-freest-countries/article_d6ee1ffc-9d87-11ed-9fca-b742955ccf4c.html

Human Freedom Index 2022: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-2022

Chart courtesy Reddit

Donner Canadian Foundation funds "right wing"

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/

'via Blog this'

Chase Foundation gives $800K/year to libertarian policy network

Chasing Free Enterprise: An Investor Gives Steadily for Libertarian Think Tanks — Inside Philanthropy - Ade Adeniji:

June 20, 2017 - "The Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation's motto is 'free minds, free markets.' Among its trustees is Derwood S. Chase, Jr., who steers Chase Investment Counsel Corporation in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Chase, who graduated from the University of Virginia and holds a Harvard MBA, also sits on the board of the right-leaning Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada, which starts to paint a picture of the type of organizations that Chase is interested in.

"His Chase Foundation of Virginia was established in the mid-1990s, and in recent years has given in the neighborhood of $700,000 to $800,000 annually to a number of libertarian or conservative policy organizations across the country and north of the border.

"Besides the Reason Foundation and Fraser Institute, Chase, via his foundation, has also backed Acton Institute in Michigan, a think tank whose mission is 'to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.' The outfit is named after English Historian Lord John Acton, behind the well-known dictum 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

"Chase has also supported places like the Atlas Network, Buckeye Institute for Public Policy in Ohio, Cascade Policy Institute in Portland, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Goodman Institute for Public Policy in Miami, Institute for Energy Research, Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, and Montreal Economic Institute....

"As we've reported in the past, such giving has allowed the right to scale up a comprehensive policy infrastructure to influence policy at all levels of government."

Read more: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/6/20/derwood-chase-philanthropy-think-tanks
'via Blog this'

The Revenant shows need for property rights

Misdeeds in The Revenant spurred by absence of property rights, not capitalism gone wild | Fraser Institute - Jonathan Fortier:

January 28, 2016 - "It is the season for American film awards, and the glitterati are all abuzz with adoration for The Revenant, which won a Golden Globe for best picture and is nominated for 12 Oscars. As usual, Hollywood’s stars are using their work as a platform to bash capitalism. The Revenant director Alejandro Iñárritu stated in a Guardian interview that his film attempts to portray the roots of capitalism, about the single-minded attempt to profit from the cutting of trees and the killing of animals and exploitation of the natives. Still further, according to Iñárritu, the early 19th century frontier life is the foundation for many of the ills of contemporary capitalism: 'This is the seed, for me, of the capitalism that we live in now: completely inconsiderate of any consequences for nature.'

"Leonardo DiCaprio (who stars as the film’s protagonist) ... used the stage to decry corporate exploitation of native people. Ravina Bains, associate director of aboriginal policy at the Fraser Institute, has written ... about DiCaprio’s comments, and suggests that we might more profitably begin by considering the [lack] of private property rights [for] native populations, rather than corporate exploitation.

"Capitalism is an economic system that depends on institutional arrangements, namely the rule of law and private property rights (there are others, but those two are foundational). Early 19th century America had neither of these things in the way we think of them now. The frontiersmen preceded the rule of law (or its enforcement), and it was unclear precisely how to think of Native American property rights. The vast tracts of land were thought of as limitless resources owned by no one....

"Indeed, the absence of private property rights ... creates a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario where no one is motivated to protect resources and everyone is motivated to get as much as they can before others. This is quite graphically portrayed in The Revenant, with groups of trappers sitting amongst piles and piles of bloody beaver hides... [I]t was the absence of property rights and a lack of respect for the native’s property rights (not 'capitalism') that resulted in the massive overkilling. (Similarly, the burning of the Amazon rainforest for cattle ranching and farming can be better explained by the absence of private property rights than a sort of 'capitalism gone wild.')

"One of the fictions about Native American Indians is that they lived peaceful lives with no notion of private property before the arrival of western Europeans. But war amongst native tribes was common, and we know that the supposed collectivism was a myth. Native Americans had personal property rights (in artifacts such as weapons and clothing) and land-use rights (for farming, hunting and fishing) even if those rights were sometimes seasonal and based on a nomadic lifestyle.

"Native people and those struggling in poverty in the developing world are done a great disservice by DiCaprio, Ińárritu and others who trot out the tired (and wrong) clichés about capitalism. For, as Richard Pipes, Thomas Bethell and Hernando de Soto (amongst many others) have argued, it is capitalism (and its attendant institutions of private property and the rule of law) that can best improve their lives."

Read more: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/misdeeds-in-the-revenant-spurred-by-absence-of-property-rights-not-capitalism-gone-wild
'via Blog this'

A Tale of Two Articles

The main venue for my political writing online is web mag Nolan Chart. I've published between 100 and 200 articles over the 3 years I've been there. Some were hits, some were  flops.

I love it when a NC article of mine that originally flopped suddenly gets new life. The classic examples were my June, 2008 article "Government and Anarchy", and "Health Care vs. Pizza" from that July, both of which received less than 100 reads when first published, but both of which went on to break 1,000 reads the following year. For that I have to thank (1) the anarcho-libertarians who criticized the first article, but also linked to it; and (2) Barack Obama, who turned health care into a major issue in the U.S. last year. 

This summer may be seeing two new examples. The first was an article I wrote in October, 2008, "Barr and Nader agree to debate." That one is completely dated, except for one thing: as an update I included a link to the debate, the entire hour of which the Barr campaign had archived on You Tube. The Barr 2008 campaign has taken down its web site long ago; however (I discovered in June) it has left its videos up on YouTube, including the debate video. Accordingly, I rechristened the above article "Barr / Nader / Baldwin debate 2008",  rewrote its abstract to describe it as a portal to the debate, and moved it to the "Libertarian History" section of the chart. The result? The article went from 77 reads in the first five months of this year (15/month) to 123 over the next three (almost 3 times as many). 

Even more dramatic has been the change in my article "Smokin'" (another June, 2008 article, which was actually a 2000 review of the Fraser Institute book, Passive Smoke). That one has gone from 81 reads in the first seven months of 2010 (12/month), to 64 in August alone; more than 5 times as many. What accounts for that? 

In August I became a Wikipedia editor -- one of millions, so that is not a big deal. It has, though allowed me to clean up minor errors in articles when I'm reading Wiki, which I do frequently. One should not edit articles on oneself (or anything else one is personally involved in), so I have not edited the text of the Wiki article on me. However, since that article was flagged for being completely uncited, I've been adding footnotes to some of the claims. One was that I oppose "restrictions on public smoking" (which is close enough; what I oppose is government restrictions on smoking on private property), and I added "Smokin'" as a cite for that. 

I also added "Government and Anarchy" as a cite to the claim that I oppose anarchism, which has also given that article a boost: it has 140 reads for August, the most it's ever received in a month – not bad for a 3-year-old article at all. 

Unfortunately neither change can be seen by accessing the widget on the right side of this page; that leads to an older, cached version of the Wiki article. To see the changes, one has to go to the "George Dance (politician)" page on Wikipedia. 

Whether those two articles will continue their surges, and end up passing the 1,000-reads barrier, is unknown at this time, but I'm optimistic.