While the CTF is likely Canadian, although there's really no way for us to know for sure, it is emphatically not a federation, and, given the causes it espouses, it most certainly does not represent the interests or the wishes of most ordinary Canadian taxpayers.
Early yesterday, CBC Manitoba posted an online analysis piece by Dougald Lamont, a University of Winnipeg teacher of government and business relations and a long-time Manitoba Liberal, about the disproportionate influence the right-wing mouthpiece organization enjoys in Canadian political discourse.
Mr. Lamont made it clear the CTF is not what it wants you to think it is – a broad-based popular movement or a large membership-based organization. It’s just another Astro-Turf front group set up to push the tired old conservative, market-fundamentalist, anti-union agenda that benefits the 1% and no one else.
The CTF, Mr. Lamont wrote, “has been around since the late 1980s, selling itself as a populist ‘citizens advocacy group’ looking to cut waste and ensure accountability in government. They get acres of free coverage in newspapers and on local and national newscasts; their spokespeople regularly get more coverage than elected officials.”
“The CTF’s media presence is truly remarkable when you consider it has a membership of five people,” Mr. Lamont went on, cutting to the chase. “You read that correctly: five.”
Like a business that does not publicly trade shares, the CTF has no legal obligation to act in a transparent way. Similarly, as Mr. Lamont observed, “political parties and politicians are required by law to disclose the names of donors over about $200. As a non-profit, the CTF has no obligation to disclose its donors – and it doesn’t.”
Mr. Lamont also pointed out it’s not clear where the bulk of the CTF’s donors live. If they are mostly conservatives residing in Alberta and Saskatchewan, what business do they have telling citizens in Ontario, Quebec or Atlantic Canada how to run their affairs? (And please don’t raise the topic of equalization payments, which are paid by all Canadian taxpayers.)
Taxpayers Federation's true Astroturf nature finally worms its way into public consciousness | rabble.ca
Early yesterday, CBC Manitoba posted an online analysis piece by Dougald Lamont, a University of Winnipeg teacher of government and business relations and a long-time Manitoba Liberal, about the disproportionate influence the right-wing mouthpiece organization enjoys in Canadian political discourse.
Mr. Lamont made it clear the CTF is not what it wants you to think it is – a broad-based popular movement or a large membership-based organization. It’s just another Astro-Turf front group set up to push the tired old conservative, market-fundamentalist, anti-union agenda that benefits the 1% and no one else.
The CTF, Mr. Lamont wrote, “has been around since the late 1980s, selling itself as a populist ‘citizens advocacy group’ looking to cut waste and ensure accountability in government. They get acres of free coverage in newspapers and on local and national newscasts; their spokespeople regularly get more coverage than elected officials.”
“The CTF’s media presence is truly remarkable when you consider it has a membership of five people,” Mr. Lamont went on, cutting to the chase. “You read that correctly: five.”
Like a business that does not publicly trade shares, the CTF has no legal obligation to act in a transparent way. Similarly, as Mr. Lamont observed, “political parties and politicians are required by law to disclose the names of donors over about $200. As a non-profit, the CTF has no obligation to disclose its donors – and it doesn’t.”
Mr. Lamont also pointed out it’s not clear where the bulk of the CTF’s donors live. If they are mostly conservatives residing in Alberta and Saskatchewan, what business do they have telling citizens in Ontario, Quebec or Atlantic Canada how to run their affairs? (And please don’t raise the topic of equalization payments, which are paid by all Canadian taxpayers.)
Taxpayers Federation's true Astroturf nature finally worms its way into public consciousness | rabble.ca
