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Originally Posted by Treebeard
The gentlemen who penned that piece is a Mr. Neil Brooks. A little googling confirms thats Mr. Brooks is a contributor to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
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Googles first link shows he is a full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and is director of the Graduate Program in Taxation. He is the past Associate Dean of the Law School and has taught at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Illinois. He received is BA at the University of Alberta in 1966 and his law Degree at UBC in 1969. He has been on advisory commitees for the Auditor General and Revenue Canada. He was the editor of the Canadian Tax Journal and besides the CCPA has also been published by such diverse journals as the Australian GST Journal, the Portfolio Committee on Finance for the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa and the Harvard Institute for International Development..
By contrast, the primary researcher for tax freedom day for the Fraser institute is Niels Veldhuis. He is the Director of Fisical Studies for the Fraser Institute. He has a bachelors in Business Administration and Masters in Economics from SFU and teaches economics at Kwantlen College in Richmond. He received his Masters in 2000 but has apparently never been published in any academic journal - only Fraser Institute publications.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treebeard
It would also appear that the CCPA is left wing organization, largely funded by unions and ran by unions leaders. Therefore, it is no surprise that Mr. Brooks, nor the CCPA would hold the opinion that we are overtaxed.
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The Fraser Institute's inital funding in 1974 was from Macmillian Blodell. Between 2003 & 2004, they received 120,000 from Exxon Mobile - in February 2007 the released an "independant summary" on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report. Not surprisingly, they discounted the UN's conclusions on global warming.
The Fraser Institute has sought and received funding from Rothmans, British American Tobacco and Philip Morris. In 1999, The Fraser Institue published the book "Passive Smoke - The EPA's Betrayal of Science and Policy" which questions the link between smoking and cancer
Looking at who funds the Fraser Institute, the lack of qualifications of their authors and their disregard for proper scientific research methodology, it is no surprise that they hold the opinion that we are overtaxed.