Editor, The Times:
On the business pages of the Sun there was a notice about the Fraser Institute Gala Dinner held on Nov. 17.
This event, which more appropriately should have been entitled ‘Send in the Clowns,’ featured Darren Entwhistle, president and CEO of Telus. What’s he going to talk about? Providing good, cheap, reasonable phone service?
I doubt it was something as mundane as that. No doubt there was some fantasy about ‘free market capitalism.’ How Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, as my late waggish friend put it, are going to come along and fix the economy every time it goes awry.
With all that the Fraser Institute stands for in tatters all over the globe, one would think that they would don sackcloth and ashes and offer deep apologies to those they misled! But no, the free market Easter Bunny is going to hop down the chimney with a sack of goodies to fix the economy.
Not only that, but the Fraser Institute has branched to out assessing school. Yes, that school where the 25 children from my six underage wives go to in Bountiful is the finest school in B.C. - in all of Canada maybe? “The Fraser Institute couldn’t rate a dirty movie.” So spoke my aforementioned late waggish friend.
Now let’s look at the list of supporters and sponsors of the Fraser Institute. The Jim Pattison Group, Canaccord, Teck, Goldcorps, Sun Life Financial, then RBC, CIBC, Scotia Banks (isn’t it comforting to know that the financial institutions, one of which I personally do business with, believe that a flash of Tinkerbelle’s wand will correct any financial abnormalities?).
Then there are the media - Business Vancouver (figures) and the Vancouver Sun (what is B.C.’s supposed paper of record doing popping up at the Fraser Institute? Talk about a perversion of the principles of a free press).
No wonder Pacific Press is so hysterical about Occupy Vancouver movement. The ‘people’s action’ reveals the non-existence of the Fraser Institute’s free market never-never land.
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.