Here is a partial list of Canadian daily newspapers that wrote positively and uncritically about the Fraser Institute’s bogus tax freedom day this year:
Belleville Intelligencer, Brantford Expositor, Brockville Recorder and Times, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Globe and Mail, Hamilton Spectator, Kingston Whig-Standard, London Free Press, Montreal Gazette, Nanaimo Daily News, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Peterborough Examiner, Regina Leader Post, St. John Telegraph Journal, St. Thomas Times-Journal, Sarnia Observer, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Sault Star, Sechelt Coast Reporter, Timmins Daily Press, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist, Welland Tribune, Western Star (Newfoundland), Windsor Star, Winnipeg Sun and Winnipeg Free Press.
Nearly every major and minor newspaper in Canada participated in this ongoing propaganda exercise.
The papers also reported, largely positively, about the Harper government’s smoke and mirrors budget.
Was it just coincidence the Harper budget and tax freedom day fell on the same day, June 6?
Or have government and think-tank ramped up their level of co-operation, the way the George W. Bush administration and the American Enterprise Institute co-ordinated the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003?
This is not the first time the Harper government and the Fraser Institute have worked together. When the think-tank released its 2010 economic freedom of the world index at Ottawa’s Rideau Club, guest speaker was Peter Van Loan, Harper’s Minister of International Trade.
After enthusing about the wonders of free trade, Van Loan ended with an invitation: “So let’s work together to continue convincing Canadians … of the importance of economic freedom.”
The institute would continue to disseminate propaganda about economic freedom, providing a more favourable intellectual climate within which the government could continue to negotiate trade deals.
Now they’re working together — with the active participation of Canada’s corporate media — to convince Canadians of the importance of low taxes. It’s a good-cop-bad-cop kind of routine. Harper says we are keeping taxes low without hurting you. The Fraser Institute says taxes aren’t low at all.
Nobody’s making the case that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. Or at least the people making this case, like the National Union of Public and General Employees, are censored by the corporate media.
And, perhaps not surprisingly, no newspaper thought to check with Neil Brooks and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for a critique of tax freedom day. Brooks, a professor of tax law at Osgood Hall Law School, wrote a scathing critique of the methodology behind tax freedom day in 2005, pointing out how the institute underestimated income and overestimated taxes to derive tax freedom day, which he called a “flawed, incoherent and pernicious concept.”
And, with the assistance of the corporate media, the agenda moves forward.
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