#Macdonald-Laurier Institute

[thearbourist]

Recommitting to Canadian Values - Josh Dehaas

Identity politics sow division and strife within society.  We need to revisit the idea that we are all Canadians first and foremost.  We come in all different shapes, beliefs, and abilities.  Those differences and the acceptance of our actual diversity is what makes Canada a wonderful place to live and prosper. Josh Denaas writes at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute about the change in activism…

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A large majority of Canadians have been exposed to Russian false narratives about the war in Ukraine — and people who support the Conservative Party are more susceptible to believing Kremlin disinformation, according to a new report. A survey from DisinfoWatch, part of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute think tank, found that 71 per cent of Canadians polled have heard at least one Russian false narrative and that a substantial portion “believe them to be true or are unsure of their falsehood.” It also found “Conservative supporters, who report the highest exposure levels to Kremlin narratives, are also more likely to believe in them compared to their Liberal and NDP counterparts.” The high percentage of Canadians being exposed to the narratives means “Russian disinformation is, in fact, reaching into Canadian homes,” DisinfoWatch director and co-author of the report Marcus Kolga told Global News. He said the primary purpose “is to erode Canadian support and trust in the government of Ukraine, to slow down the aid we’re sending to Ukraine and to stop the supply of weapons, whether it’s Canada or any of our NATO allies.”

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[worklabournewsresearch]

Opinion: Ottawa's "Just Transition" Needs to be Challenged for Encouraging Fantasy Around Oil and Gas

Exner-Pirot, H. (2022, May 17). Opinion: Ottawa's "just transition" needs to be challenged for encouraging fantasy around oil and gas. Calgary Herald. https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-ottawas-just-transition-needs-to-be-exposed-as-a-flawed-fantasy UTL Link: http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fblogs-podcasts-websites%2Fopinion-ottawas-just-transition-needs-be%2Fdocview%2F2665521692%2Fse-2%3F

Heather Exner-Pinot writes: “A fantasy has emerged in Canada called a ‘just transition.’ In this paradigm, the transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy in the form of solar panels and windmills will create a prosperous, low-carbon future with a thriving green economy. Taking action now will make our economy stronger and more competitive. The catch is that workers and communities who depend on the oil and gas sector will be disadvantaged. The ‘just transition’ ensures no one is left behind, with workers given the supports to succeed in other, more sustainable, fields. So committed is the federal government to this version of reality, that it is planning to introduce legislation in its name, to codify its ‘people-centred just transition principles.’”

“Global demand for oil and gas is as high as it has ever been. ... Years of underinvestment in production, now topped with sanctions on Russia, mean that prices for LNG and refined products are at record levels. Energy experts think crude oil will soon hit $180 a barrel or higher. Even if demand does eventually match up with supply, it still makes sense for the western world to maintain some production of its own, instead of relying on OPEC and Russia.”

“It seems almost farcical to dedicate legislative effort and taxpayer dollars to training programs for unemployable oilpatch workers, or to help oil and gas regions become economically viable. Canada has never exported more crude and bitumen than it does now, buoyed by the recent completion of the Line 3 pipeline, the reversal of the Capline pipeline, and global markets taking whatever we could muster. But labour, especially experienced labour, is a constraining factor, and is hampering growth, even with wages at three times or more the Canadian average. ... The more immediate question, however, is if we will stop using hydrocarbons for fuel. Here, the pragmatist must concede that that problem with fossil fuels is not the fuel per se, but the emissions. It is going to be far cheaper and faster to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into carbon capture, than it will be to replace tens of trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuel infrastructure with brand new energy systems.”

Additional Information

Wang, S., & Lloyd, J. (2022, March). What will Canadian green jobs really look like? Macdonald-Laurier Institute. https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mar2022_Canadian_green_jobs_Wang_Lloyd_COMMENTARY_FWeb.pdf

Photo source: Korol, T. [Photograph]. Reuters. https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-ottawas-just-transition-needs-to-be-exposed-as-a-flawed-fantasy

[mariacallous]

It’s now been six months since Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and internal crackdown that has effectively turned Russia into a dictatorship. In this time, the Russian anti-war movement has been all but crushed: activists and independent politicians are behind bars or in exile; ordinary people are being prosecuted en masse for attempting to speak out against the war (or in support of peace); “unreliable” artists are seeing their concerts and exhibitions canceled; military censorship reigns supreme and the independent press has been driven out of the country. Together with the human rights media project OVD-Info, Meduza presents a breakdown of the Russian authorities’ six-month-long effort to stamp out dissent once and for all.

Restricting the right to freedom of assembly

OVD-Info recorded at least 16,437 arrests in connection with anti-war protests between February 24 and August 17, 2022. In addition to arrests carried out at street protests, this figure includes 138 arrests for anti-war posts on social media, 118 arrests for anti-war symbols, and 62 arrests carried out after anti-war demonstrations. 

In addition to the arrests during and after anti-war rallies, the Russian authorities have also carried out “preventive” detentions with the help of facial recognition technology. Moscow’s facial recognition system was used to arrest at least 33 people on Russia’s Flag Day, August 22. 

Repressions at the legislative level

There were no new laws introduced in August 2022, likely because Russian lawmakers are on holiday. Since February 24, however, State Duma lawmakers have adopted a total of 16 new repressive laws or amendments to existing legislation. 

Felony cases

In 182 days of war, 224 people became defendants in felony “anti-war cases.” The 224th person charged was anti-war politician and former Yekaterinburg Mayor Evgeny Roizman, who was arrested on August 24, exactly six months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In August alone, OVD-Info lawyers began representing the defendants in five new criminal cases: Alexey Onoshkin, Ilya Gantsevsky, Marina Ovsyannikova, Andrey Pavlov, and Sergey Veselov. In total, OVD-Info lawyers are handling 22 felony “anti-war cases.”

Administrative cases

According to Mediazona, since February 24, at least 3,780 cases have been opened under Article 20.3.3 of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offenses (discrediting the army). 

OVD-Info has also recorded at least seven cases of extrajudicial persecution of people who publicly opposed the war. These include, among other things, physical attacks, threats, being fired from government agencies, and law enforcement refusing to investigate anti-Ukrainian vandalism.

‘Foreign agents’ and ‘undesirable organizations’

The Russian Justice Ministry appears to have taken August off — there have been no new additions to the “foreign agent” registry this month. However, over the summer, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office filed a lawsuit to liquidate the Journalists’ Union for non-compliance with the requirements of “foreign agent” legislation, and the Moscow Arbitration Court began bankruptcy proceedings against RFE/RL’s Russian entity due to the non-payment of fines imposed for failing to label “foreign agent” content. 

Since OVD-Info published its July report on anti-war repressions, three more organizations have been declared “undesirable”: The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada. There are now 65 organizations on Russia’s “undesirable” blacklist.

In addition, the Russian Attorney General’s Office added a nineteenth domain belonging to the investigative outlet The Insider to its registry of banned information. 

Internet blocks, censorship, and pressure on independent media outlets

According to the digital rights group Roskomsvoboda, about 7,000 websites have been blocked due to military censorship. But Attorney General Igor Krasnov reported that Russia has removed or blocked roughly 138,000 web resources since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine.

In August, VKontakte blocked the pages of artist Yulia Tsvetkova, the Belarusian news outlet Zerkalo, and OVD-Info. OVD-Info’s VK page was blocked because it supposedly contained “unreliable socially significant information” about the Russian army’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Moscow’s Lukhovitsky District Court also refused to unblock the OVD-Info website. 

In the past month, the Attorney General’s Office also censored a press conference in defense of oppressed Muslims involving human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, as well as Gannushkina’s comments to media outlets such as Culture of Dignity, Tell Gordeeva, and TV Rain. The publication TJournal also announced that it was shutting down due to a serious decline in readership (and revenue) after its website was blocked.

At least five concerts and events were censored after participants publicly expressed anti-war views. The Russian authorities canceled a lecture by journalist Asya Kazantseva, as well as performances by pop singer Dora and the bands AloeVera, Krovostok, and Anacondaz. 

You can read OVD-Info’s full report here.

[fumpkins]

How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada

This story is a collaboration between Floodlight, The Narwhal and the Guardian. It is republished here with permission.

A U.S.-based libertarian coalition has spent years pressuring the Canadian government to limit how much Indigenous communities can push back on energy development on their own land, newly reviewed strategy documents reveal.

The Atlas Network partnered with an Ottawa-based think tank — the Macdonald-Laurier Institute — which enlisted pro-industry Indigenous representatives in its campaign to provide “a shield against opponents.”

Atlas, which has deep ties to conservative politicians and oil and gas producers, claimed success in reports in 2018 and 2020, arguing its partner was able to discourage the Canadian government from supporting a United Nations declaration that would ensure greater involvement by Indigenous communities.

The Canadian Parliament did eventually pass the legislation to begin implementing the declaration in 2021, but observers say the government has made little progress to move it forward.

Meanwhile, Indigenous groups linked to the Macdonald-Laurier Institutes’s campaign — including the Indian Resource Council — continue to appear at conferences, testify to federal committees, and get quoted in major media outlets to push the view that Indigenous prosperity is virtually impossible without oil and gas.

Hayden King, executive director of the Toronto-based Indigenous public policy think tank Yellowhead Institute, called the campaign “a contemporary expression of the type of imperialism that Indigenous peoples have been dealing with here for many, many years.”

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute directed questions about the reports to the Atlas Network, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The Atlas Network calls itself a “worldwide freedom movement” and has nearly 500 partners, including think tanks like the Manhattan Institute. Other powerful partners include the Cato Institute, a think tank co-founded by Charles Koch in 1977, as well as the Heritage Foundation, which hosted a keynote speech by Donald Trump in April. Their influence on U.S. politics includes leading campaigns to make Americans doubt if human-caused climate change is real.

Atlas members have helped influence the views of Republican politicians, including George W. Bush. The Arlington, Virginia-based organization — which received more than one million dollars from the oil company ExxonMobil through 2012 and $745,000 from foundations linked to the Koch brothers through 2018, according to watchdog groups — has also exerted significant influence on conservative politics in the U.K. and Latin America.

Bob Neubauer, a researcher with a Canadian oil and gas watchdog organization known as the Corporate Mapping Project, said Atlas includes “a very significant number of the most influential right-wing think tanks and advocacy organizations on the planet.”

“It should make people nervous,” he added.

Atlas and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute have for years been pushing back against attempts by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to align Canadian laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, a declaration Canada endorsed more than a decade ago. That could have codified Indigenous rights to reject pipelines or drilling, the Atlas Network feared, according to their strategy documents, which were shared with Floodlight by an investigative climate research organization called DeSmog.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference in 2021. NDREJ IVANOV / AFP via Getty Images

That’s because the treaty contains clauses affirming Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty over territories they’ve lived on for thousands of years. Implementing it would potentially make it harder for extraction companies to operate on those territories. At stake, the report explains, were Canada’s “monumental reserves of natural gas, hydroelectricity, potash, uranium, oil, and other natural resources.”

In recent years the Atlas Network has deepened its connections to Canada, setting up a Center for U.S. and Canada that “works with local civil society organizations on both sides of the border to create positive perceptions of the role of free enterprise and individual liberty,” according to its website.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is one of roughly a dozen Atlas Network partner organizations in Canada. It’s a relatively new organization, formed only in 2010, but its board members and advisors come from some of the top lobbying, legal, and financial firms in the country.

In 2018, the Atlas Network created a 13-page “think tank impact case study” report about a campaign being led by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute called the “Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy Project.” Atlas wanted to highlight this project at a training academy for its partners around the world.

The report is no longer accessible on the Atlas Network website but was recovered by DeSmog on an internet archive called the Wayback Machine.

“The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, its staff, and the authors affiliated with the Aboriginal Canada and the Natural Resource Economy project were the only entities that worked on that project,” institute spokesperson Brett Byers wrote in an email.

“Questions regarding the content, nature, or interpretation of a report published by the Atlas Network are better directed toward the Atlas Network,” he added. The Atlas Network didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions about its involvement.

The report claims that this project was started “at the behest of the Assembly of First Nations,” a national advocacy group for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, which “saw potential in the natural resource economy as a major driver of transformation in Indigenous opportunity.” The Assembly didn’t respond to a media request asking if this is accurate.

The Atlas report notes that a prime objective of this collaboration was removing barriers to the production of fossil fuels. It explains that as political momentum began building in 2016 for Canada to implement the U.N. declaration, this “concerned the team” at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

That was because the U.N. declaration contains a clause stating that Indigenous peoples have the right to give “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent” before governments make decisions that could have a large material impact on their traditional territories.

Some legal experts see this as a reasonable way to ensure that Indigenous communities are equal partners in decision-making. But the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Atlas Network appeared to interpret this to mean that those communities could effectively veto new oil pipelines, fracking operations, and other resource extraction projects.

“It is difficult to overstate the legal and economic disruptions that may have followed from such a step,” the report continued.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute with the support of Atlas embarked on “a sophisticated communications and outreach strategy to persuade the government, businesses, and Aboriginal communities on the dangers involved with fully adopting UNDRIP,” the report says.

Early success came that November, when then-Canadian minister of justice Jody Wilson-Raybould, who is is a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, “offered her support to [the institute’s] view.” The report was referring to a 2016 speech where she said that fully implementing UNDRIP would be “unworkable,” creating doubt about the government’s commitment.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s “experts are always in regular communication with MPs, ministers, and government officials,” Byers wrote. Wilson-Raybould didn’t respond to a media request.

Meanwhile, an opposition party member introduced a new bill meant to enshrine UNDRIP in law. This effort slowly gained momentum and political support, but when the bill ended up before Canada’s Senate for approval in 2019, a Macdonald-Laurier Institute scholar named Dwight Newman submitted written comments that the legislation’s inclusion of “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” could “have enormous implications for Canada.”

“The bill was ultimately defeated,” Atlas explains on its website.

“There could be some truth to that,” said King, who is Anishinaabe from Beausoleil First Nation. “The bill died in the Senate because Conservative senators delayed and basically filibustered the legislation.” And one of the senators accused of filibustering, Don Plett, quoted at length from a Macdonald-Laurier Institute report during a Senate debate about UNDRIP.

This was seen as a major victory by Atlas, which appears to have provided funding for the campaign. “Atlas Network supported this initiative with a Poverty & Freedom grant,” notes a 2020 document on the Atlas website. That document also identified First Nations allies “working directly” on the campaign, such as the Indian Resource Council and the First Nations Major Projects Coalition.

“That is inaccurate,” wrote a spokesperson for the First Nations Major Projects Coalition, referencing 2018 testimony its vice-chair gave in support of UNDRIP.

When the Trudeau government made yet another attempt to implement the U.N. declaration in 2021, Indian Resource Council president Stephen Buffalo told a standing senate committee that there should be language in the legislation preventing “special-interest groups” from being able to “weaponize” the declaration to block new pipelines.

“Whether or not you support the oil and gas industry, it is the right of the 131 nations of the Indian Resource Council of Canada to develop their resources as they see fit,” he said. The organization didn’t respond to a media request.

The Trudeau government successfully passed a bill starting the implementation of the declaration in June 2021. But it’s been a slow process since then. “There’s very little progress,” King said. “It’s bogged down in administrative morass.”

The Atlas Network appears to be moving into a new phase of advocacy. At a conference in Guatemala earlier this year, leaders “from freedom-minded organizations, many of them Atlas Network partners,” gathered to “sharpen their plans for the coming year.”

At this invitation-only event, Macdonald-Laurier Institute “workshopped a project to improve opportunities for native populations,” according to an Atlas Network write-up of the conference.

Macdonald-Laurier Institute wanted to apply what it has learned in Canada globally. “The goal of the project would be to promote Indigenous economic development across the world,” Byers wrote.

This story was originally published by Livescience.Tech with the headline How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada on Jul 30, 2022.

New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2022/08/01/how-a-conservative-us-network-undermined-indigenous-energy-rights-in-canada/

[stevemaclellan]

The Kochs described themselves as libertarians who wanted government out of the way but their campaigns were also transparently self-interested. The organizations they financed promoted deep tax cuts, a loosening of environmental regulations, attacks on labour unions and support to climate-change deniers. As Mayer writes in Dark Money, "The Kochs vehemently opposed the government taking any action on climate change that would hurt their fossil fuel profits." They also opposed gun laws, an obscenity in the age of El Paso, Parkland, Sandy Hook, and any other number of mass shootings.

Canadian connection

The Kochs also have a significant Canadian connection. Until just recently, a subsidiary of Koch Industries was the largest foreign holder of exploration leases in Alberta's oil sands, with at least 1.1 million acres, an area approximately the size of Prince Edward Island. However, Koch has recently sold most of its oil sands licences to a Calgary-based company.

But the Canadian connection does not end there. The website North 99 says that the Kochs were involved in providing millions of dollars in support to an array of conservative Canadian think-tanks and other organizations which promote a right-wing agenda in this country. Many of these organizations will be familiar to anyone who follows the news. They include: the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, MacDonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy, Manning Centre, and the Montreal Economic Institute. Those groups claim to be independent but they devotedly support conservative causes, and ultimately the Conservative Party led by Andrew #Scheer.

[syntheticabsence]

FUCK the macdonald laurier institute. if you want to know more about the other side of things, here's a story about indigenous people defending their land by any means necessary.

McCarthyism 2 -  first target: water protectors.

[don-lichterman]

‘Progressive Issues’ in Indo-Pacific Strategy Not Useful for Countries in the Region, Expert Says

‘Progressive Issues’ in Indo-Pacific Strategy Not Useful for Countries in the Region, Expert Says

Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy has pledged to work with allies in pushing back against threats posed by authoritarian states in the region, but it has much work to do to prove that it will walk the walk, an expert at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) said. Stephen Nagy, an MLI senior fellow and an associate professor at the International Christian University, said allies in the Indo-Pacific…

[reveal-the-news]

Canada’s Economy Could Increase by $200 Billion Yearly If Internal Trade Barriers Were Removed: Study

Canada’s Economy Could Increase by $200 Billion Yearly If Internal Trade Barriers Were Removed: Study

A recent study by think tank Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) says Canada could boost its economy by $200 billion a year if it removed internal trade barriers and adopted mutual recognition policies. The report, titled “Liberalization of Internal Trade through Mutual Recognition: A Legal and Economic Analysis,” argues that Canada’s economy is losing billions of dollars in productivity each year…

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A group of more than 130 historians and politicians are claiming Canada’s first prime minister is being judged too harshly for his role as architect of the residential school system, in a statement Indigenous scholars say amounts to whitewashing.

The statement, titled In Defence of Sir John A. Macdonald and His Legacy, says the prime minister’s racism towards Indigenous peoples must be weighed “against an impressive record of constitution and nation-building, his reconciliation of contending cultures, languages, and religions, his progressivism, and his documented concern for and friendship with the Indigenous peoples of Canada.”

It was put together by the Friends of Sir John A. Macdonald and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and its signatories include historians Charlotte Gray and Margaret MacMillan, military historian Jack Granatstein, Conservative politicians Peter MacKay, Joe Oliver and Jean Charest (who was a federal Progressive Conservative but a provincial Liberal), commentator David Frum, and former Toronto Star publisher John Honderich.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[kayla1993-world]

China halts dialogue with the United States. What does this mean for Canada? (msn.com)

In response to Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Taiwan, China suspended dialogue with the US in several areas on Friday. Not only has dialogue on climate change and among theater-level military commanders been stifled, but cross-border crime and drug trafficking exchanges have also ceased.

With such an “un-transparent” regime, it may be difficult to predict what lies ahead for Canada’s diplomatic relations with China, according to Josephine Chiu-Duke, professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

“I did not anticipate the Chinese regime acting in such a fierce, violent manner,” she told Global News. "We can’t really predict China’s actions because their system is simply so opaque,” she said. “We simply don't know what other actions China will take in the long run.”

However, for the time being, Chiu-Duke does not seek a shift in Canadian-Republic People's of China relations. "At this time, I don't see any significant change in the relationship between Canada and the People's Republic of China," she said.

In response to Pelosi’s “vicious” and “provocative” actions during her visit to Taiwan earlier in the week, China's Communist government imposed sanctions on her and her immediate family.

In addition, during large military drills, China launched ballistic missiles near Taiwan. "I think China must understand that its behavior is irresponsible," André Laliberté, professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, told Global News.

Canada has always kept a close eye on US-China relations, according to Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She described the dialogue halt as a “gross overreaction."

According to McCuaig-Johnston, Canada must develop a comprehensive plan to govern relations with both China and Taiwan in the future.

"We need to describe the new, more aggressive China we're seeing and identify how our government intends to manage that relationship, as well as how we intend to work with and support Taiwan. This Indo-Pacific strategy will shape how we interact with China, Taiwan, and other countries in the region."

Charles Burton, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former counselor at Canada's Embassy in China, would like to see an Indo-Pacific policy that is consistent with European allies, as well as Australia and the United States.

"We really need to put this on the government's agenda, make some decisions, and state exactly where Canada stands on Taiwan defense and China's activities," he told Global News.

With no Canadian ambassador in Beijing since Dominic Barton left in December of last year, Canada's voice in China, according to Burton, is currently "muted."

"You really need someone at the ambassadorial level to get access to the Chinese regime and be taken seriously," he said. On Friday, China’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Canadian diplomat Jim Nickel to Beijing to reaffirm the country's commitment to preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

On Wednesday, G7 foreign ministers issued a statement outlining their concerns about recent "threatening actions by the People’s Republic of China, particularly live-fire exercises and economic coercion, which risk unnecessary escalation."

"There is no justification for using a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait," according to the statement. Following that, Nickel was summoned Thursday by Chinese vice foreign minister Xie Feng, who urged Canada to “immediately correct its mistakes” on the Taiwan issue or “bear all consequences,” according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement published Friday.

"Any conspiracy to support separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence' is doomed to fail," the statement said. Canada’s relations with China have a tumultuous history. Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive of the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies was arrested in December 2018, at the request of the United States. Wanzhou was charged with American sanctions against Iran.

Following her arrest in late 2018, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians working in China, were detained. They were both convicted of spying in closed Chinese courts in 2021. The two Michaels, as they became known, were allowed to fly home by Beijing on September 25 after the US worked out a deferred prosecution agreement in Meng’s case, allowing her release.

"The kidnapping of the two Michaels is still a very bitter memory for many people," Laliberté said. Ng, Canada's minister of international trade, met with Taiwan's Minister John Deng earlier this year.

During the meeting, the two agreed to begin discussions on a possible foreign investment promotion and protection agreement between Canada and Taiwan, Canada's sixth-largest trading partner in Asia.

“That’s an extremely high level. I believe that demonstrates Canada’s support for democracy,” McCuaig-Johnston said, citing Canada's ships transiting the Taiwan Strait and the country's strong diplomatic team in Taipei.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“The Aurea Foundation was established in 2006 by Peter Munk, the billionaire former CEO of Barrick Gold – “the world’s largest gold mining company” – who passed away earlier this year.

According to its website, the Aurea Foundation “supports qualified institutions and affiliated individuals involved in the study and development of public policy,” giving “special attention” to issues like the “economic foundations of freedom” and “the strengthening of the free market system.” In practice, the Aurea Foundation is one of the biggest funders sustaining a network of right-wing think tanks in Canada.Canada Revenue Agency disclosures for 2017 show Aurea distributed nearly $1.8 million in funds. A few beneficiaries include: The Fraser Institute ($518,238) Macdonald-Laurier Institute ($250,000) Montreal Economic Institute ($250,000) Canadian Constitution Foundation ($250,000) C. D. Howe Institute ($225,000) Manning Foundation ($100,000) These “gifts” to other registered charities and qualified donees accounted for nearly two-thirds (63%) of Aurea’s total expenditures in 2017. Between 2011 and 2017, Aurea’s regular donations to these right-wing organizations have totaled in the millions: The Fraser Institute ($1,675,568) MacDonald-Laurier Institute ($1,255,000) Frontier Centre for Public Policy ($1,204,000) Montreal Economic Institute ($968,000) C.D. Howe Institute ($870,000) Canadian Constitution Foundation ($425,000) Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms ($275,000) Atlantic Institute for Market Studies ($252,500) According to group’s charitable disclosures, the right-wing Fraser Institute has been a top recipient of Aurea Foundation cash over the years.The Fraser Institute has received $1.7 million from the Aurea Foundation since 2011 and received a $5 million donation from Munk himself in 2016 to fund an education program that provides right-wing training sessions for teachers and offers teenagers cash prizes to write essays attacking minimum wage increases. Programming accounted for 23% of the organization’s $2.7 million budget. The only program listed on the Aurea Foundation’s website is the semi-annual Munk Debate. Speakers selected to participate in Munk Debates often voice right-wing and neoconservative views. Past speakers have included the controversial University of Toronto professor andalt-right idol Jordan Peterson, the former leader of the anti-immigrant UKIP party Nigel Farage as well as Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Former Republican house speaker Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, has participated in no fewer than three Munk Debates.

- “The Group Behind Steve Bannon’s Toronto Event Also Funds Canada’s Biggest Right-Wing Think Tanks.” PressProgress.ca, November 2, 2018.

[gettothedancing]

Which businesses couldn’t afford the $14 minimum wage? The answer is many of those businesses that employ unskilled workers whose productivity is too low to justify a $14 wage. In recent months, everything from restaurants to daycare centers to retirement homes cited the minimum wage hike as either a primary or contributing factor to shutting down. Convenience stores were also hard hit, with closures spiking by 50% in the first quarter of 2018.