The Fraser Institute is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Now, British Columbia is a bad-boy province in terms of its social safety net. In fact, they made the news in March 2010- click on the "date" to go to website- for their proposed cuts.
The Fraser Institute is classified as a non-profit, registered charity. Since it is a registered charity, you can go on the Revenue Canada website and read the annual submission and financial information.
According to the Fraser Institute website, they have 50 board members. I started to check out who these people are- well, as you would guess, some of the top earning people in the country. With a huge stake in ensuring they and their companies pay as little in taxes as possible. I found a site that did a little resume on who the board members are/were. Check it out at
The Fraser Institutes's mission statement is "A free and prosperous world through choice markets and responsibility". Hmmmm world- market- but in my opinion, the only responsibility is to themselves. If they were responsible and wanted a prosperous world they would be in favour of stabilizing the economies by lobbying for fair taxation. Just in case you missed a post- we did have a good long stretch of time when we had a very prosperous society- after World War II- at that time the wealthy and the big corporations were taxed highly. This created huge growth in our economy and stability.
According to their 2009 charitable return - here are some highlights I cut and pasted in - bold, italics and underline all mine:
- First Compensation- they spent over $5.8 million dollars in salaries/wages!
72 employees, 18 part time, top 10 highest paid positions:
$80,000 - $119,999 = 3
$120,000 - $159,999 =3
$160,000 - $199,999 =2
$200,000 - $249,999 =1
$350,000 and over = 1
What was the total expenditure on compensation for part-time or part-year employees in the fiscal period? $ 203,885
What was the charity's total expenditure on all compensation in the fiscal period? 390 $ 5,896,646
2. They received $2,097,491 million donation from a source outside of Canada.
You cannot see who the donation was from, due to privacy.
3. They received $5,267,673 from other registered Charities!
4. Total Reported revenue for 2009- 12.84 million dollars
5. Issued Tax receipts of $4,288,383
6. Used $9,986,686 for Charitable programs
7. They have 1.7 million in depreciable "other" assets.
This is not land and building.
8. They have a USA website and are linked with 70 other world wide think tanks.
This think tank may not outwardly do any lobbying but do we really know what goes on behind closed doors? Why would you use your donation money to support a salary above $250,000 let alone above $350,000! Why would anyone support them unless they felt that they were getting something out of their donation? Is not the purpose of donating to support a good cause? Did they feed anyone? Did they put clothes on any one's backs? Did they help support housing in their communities? Or have they conveniently used our tax laws to create an organization that will not pay any taxes but support themselves and their organizations?
Guess other people are have similar feelings- at least about the compensation- C470 is a bill that will allow for greater transparency.... http://www.catholicregister.org/canada/canadian-charities-fight-transparency-bill
In Ontario we have the "Sun Shine List". (This lists the top salaries of provincial gov't employees. Since many of these organizations receive money from the gov't and other charities (which just moves the money around to make sure they meet the distribution laws).
The beauty of freedom of speech is also freedom of choice. You can choose not to read any of this or do any of your own research. But then, if you get the rug pulled out from under you- will it be too late?
Love and All Good Things,
The Peaceful Matriarch,
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