An organization that purports to speak for taxpayers promotes an assimilationist approach to First Nations issues which I in my role as taxpayer find abhorrent

I’ve recently been reading an Oct. 24, 2021 Canadian Review of Sociology paper by Kyle Willmott and Alec Skillings entitled: “Anti-Indigenous policy formation: Settler colonialism and neoliberal political advocacy.”

Click here to access a PDF of the paper >

The abstract reads:

Political advocacy groups have a quiet role in much of the analysis of Indigenous-settler relations, reconciliation, and ongoing settler colonialism. Using a data set of 407 texts covering a range of 21 years (1998-2019), we conducted a content analysis on the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), a well-known ‘taxpayer’ group that has long engaged in hostile analysis of First Nations. We describe the various themes that the CTF writes about in relation to Indigenous peoples, discuss the temporal changes in how the CTF discusses policy, and offer theoretical analysis that demonstrates how neoliberal political advocacy groups have looked to weaken and attack the position of Indigenous nations in relation to settler colonial Canada.

Keywords: political advocacy groups; settler colonialism; right wing politics; tax politics; neoliberalism; populism

July 5, 2018 Tyee article

In reading the above-noted paper, I checked out a July 5, 2018 Tyee article entitled: “What Does the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Get From Its Right-Wing US Partner? Atlas Network ‘has reshaped political power in country after country,’ report says.”

A sidebar at the article reads:

Canadian Atlas Network ‘Partners’

According to its website, the Atlas Network, a U.S. based funder of right-wing market-fundamentalist groups that exerts great influence on politics worldwide, has 12 Canadian “partners.”

Atlantic Institute for Market Studies — a market-fundamentalist think tank based in Halifax; has charitable status.

Canadian Constitution Foundation — specialists in litigation in support of right-wing causes operating out of Calgary; has charitable status.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation — a high-profile Astro-Turf organization based in Regina; does not have charitable status.

Fraser Institute — a market-fundamentalist think tank in Vancouver; has charitable status.

Frontier Centre for Public Policy — a market-fundamentalist think tank in Winnipeg; has charitable status.

Institute for Liberal Studies — a market-fundamentalist think tank based in Ottawa; has charitable status.

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms — specialists in litigation in support of social conservative causes based in Calgary; has charitable status.

Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada — a Toronto-based spin-off of the Alabama organization of the same name dedicated to the anarcho-capitalist teachings of Ludwig von Mises and other members of the so-called “Austrian School” of economics; has charitable status.

Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy — a market-fundamentalist think tank in Ottawa; has charitable status.

Manning Centre — former Reform Party leader Preston Manning’s Calgary training centre for right-wing operatives; does not have charitable status, although the related Manning Foundation for Democratic Education does.

Montreal Economic Institute — bilingual market-fundamentalist think tank in Montreal; did not show up in the Canada Revenue Agency directory of charities but the organization states on its website it has charitable status.

World Taxpayers Associations — an international alliance of self-described “taxpayer protection groups” listing London, England, as its headquarters but apparently run from the CTF’s Regina offices and led by the CTF CEO; there is no indication of charitable status.