Lynn AskeyInvermere
Hats off to Kevin Nimmock for his June 3rd editorial, “Fraser system should get a failing grade.” Right wing “think tanks” such as the Fraser Institute and the CD Howe Institute, funded by the largest banks and corporations in Canada, have a very specific agenda. That agenda has to do with furthering the interests of the very corporations and the financial community (the rich 1 per cent) that fund them.
The Fraser Institute is based on and encouraged by the ideology of the late Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics. Friedman’s free market, free trade, unfettered capitalism, globalization and “privatize everything” doctrine has become increasingly popular with governments, both provincial and federal, in this country.
The Fraser Institute, in keeping with Friedman’s ideas, likes to create a sense of crisis. If citizens can be convinced that the public schools are in crisis, they will be more likely to support privatization. I suggest readers research “charter schools” and what is happening to education in the U.S.
Our once exceptional B.C. public school system is being underfunded by a government that has bought into Friedman’s economic worldview.
It is being questioned and denigrated by the Fraser Institute, an organization with a skewed outlook on what should constitute education for the masses.
Christy Clark’s government is funding private schools to 50 per cent with taxpayers’ money. Can you see how this type of subtle manipulation by the Fraser Institute may be driving government policies?
The Fraser Institute is not interested in “the common people.”
It is a tool of the political and corporate elite. It is all about elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations, major cuts to social spending, and tax cuts to big business and multinationals.
To understand better what is really driving “think tanks” like the Fraser Institute, I recommend Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine.
I also recommend that our school administrators and teachers give little credibility to the findings of the Fraser Institute.