Canada’s right-wing have fiercely denounced the Alberta NDP government’s first budget for its failure to deeply cut spending on social programs and public services so as to balance the books. The Fraser Institute has even gone so far as to claim, absurdly, that the large Alberta deficit of $6.1 billion this year is due to years of so-called over spending rather than because of the recent collapse of oil prices.

A recent study from the Fraser Institute claims boosting premiums to pay for higher Canada Pension Plan benefits would not work, since individuals would simply save less in RRSPs and other individual savings vehicles. Thus there would be no overall increase in retirement income, and individuals would have less flexible access to their savings because CPP contributions are effectively locked in.

The Fraser Institute has released a new report purporting to show that the real cost of operating the Canada Pension Plan is $2 billion per year, or four times as much as shown in the financial statements of the CPP Investment Board.

Canadian Press

The Canada Pension Plan is hiding the fact that its administrative costs have more than tripled since 2006 because of transaction and external management fees, according to a new report from a conservative think-thank.

The Fraser Institute released a report (on Earth Day naturally) claiming that, "air pollution declines as economic freedom rises." PressProgress provided a quick reality check on some of the main idiocies of the report.

But there is more to be said about this report and what it tells us about the ways that conservative forces attempt to appropriate (and de facto, even if this is not their intent, undermine) environmental policy. In part this is because behind the ideological obfuscation, the report asks a good question – can we say anything sensible about the political conditions under which good environmental policy is made?

My best guess it that the Fraser Institute expects no one to read the report behind their newest sensationalist press release, in which they claim that the cost of immigrants to Canada is staggeringly high. 

Anyone who looked at the report more closely would find false claims, deliberately misleading arguments, a naive understanding of global migration trends, and evident ignorance of what informs Canada’s immigration priorities.  The report is so poor and illogical that it cannot be taken seriously as contributing to public debates about policy reform in the domain of immigration.

Concrete is poured into the foundation of the Trois-Rivieres Regional Hospital.

 The Fraser Institute has declared yesterday “Tax Freedom Day”: the day, they claim, that Canadians stop earning wages that go towards income taxes and begin making money that they can spend at their discretion. Fraser's goal is to paint a picture of Canada as an overtaxed country suffering under the weight of big government.

The Fraser Institute has jumped into the plutonium-powered DeLorean and has gone Back to the Future with their latest report on Canadian taxes.

The Fraser Institute claims that the average Canadian family’s tax bill has soared by 1,787% since 1961.

While that’s a clear exaggeration that ignores inflation, what is astounding is that their numbers don’t even remotely hold up.