. . . and the think-tanks came rolling in
Kevin Groves

Canada's dailies are using information from think-tanks more and more, and are rolling out the red carpet for the Fraser Institute.

A 10 a.m. appointment.

From the outside, 1770 Burrard Street doesn't look like much. The building seems to have been cloned from the same material as the other commercial buildings that line this corridor into Vancouver's downtown. It's hard to imagine that this is the headquarters of the great right-wing conspiracy.

This is the Vancouver office of the Fraser Institute, a think-tank that has successfully used Canada's daily newspapers to shift political thought toward market-based solutions since its humble beginnings in the Trudeau era.

Since then, the Fraser Institute has become one of Canada's most powerful think-tanks. A quick search through some of B.C.'s daily newspaper fare shows that the Fraser Institute's name appeared at least three times more frequently than its counterpart think-tank on the left, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), from 1998 - 2002.

In The Vancouver Sun, the Fraser Institute's name appeared 458 times compared to the CCPA's 151 in those four years. As for The National Post, the Fraser Institute appeared 700 times to the CCPA's mere 78 in the same period.

You would never know that the Fraser Institute was there if you walked past its front door. There are no logos on the walls and no quotes from Adam Smith in the foyer next to a Lexus dealership. The only way I know I'm in the right place is the building list telling me the Institute is on the fourth floor.

I enter a reception room filled with books about economic freedom and a plaque on a wall listing the Fraser Institute's donors, including Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc., which used to own most of Canada's newspapers.

According to the Fraser Institute, their purpose is the "redirection of public attention to the role of competitive markets in providing for the well-being of Canadians." The purpose of the Fraser Institute, according to the liberal philosopher John Ralston Saul, is "not thought or inquiry, but rhetoric and propaganda. They simulate intellectual activity to produce corporatist and interest-based messages."

Suzanne Walters, who joined the institute in 1998, leads me through the Institute to her office, past a boardroom named for David Asper, son of CanWest Global founder Israel Asper.

Have Canada's daily newspapers rolled out the red carpet for the Fraser Institute? Whether you believe them or not, most journalists don't appear to see it that way.

"It would not surprise me that western papers might have since the Fraser Institute tends to reflect western political views," said Antonia Zerbisias, The Toronto Star's media columnist.

The Fraser Institute may also exist because of a "soft-liberal" or "left-wing" bias in The Globe and Mail, the CBC, and The Star, said David Akin, a business reporter with The Globe.

"But Fraser Institute releases are hardly treated as gospel by any newsroom I've worked in," he said. "We treat the releases of any 'think-tank' with a political bias, with a great deal, in fact, of heightened skepticism."

While newspapers may treat think-tanks like the Fraser Institute and the CCPA with skepticism, there has still been a shift toward conservatism in newspapers, and it's not just because of overbearing newspaper owners, said Eric Beauchense, a reporter with the Ottawa bureau of the CanWest News Service.

"Now, the baby boomers have a bit more wealth to protect," Beauchesne said. "They're also getting older . . . and once you accumulate that wealth, you tend to want to protect it, which may be reflected in views on, say, taxation."

So, does that mean there would be more CCPA stories if newsrooms were staffed by younger journalists, because the young tend to have greater affinity for the CCPA's views?

"Yeah that's pretty much what I'm trying to say," Beauchesne said.

Not surprisingly, Walters denies that the Fraser Institute has any red carpet relationship with the media.

"We have to work really hard to get our material into the daily papers," she said. And, that process is pretty basic, she added.

"We have news releases and media lists, and we let [the media] know it's coming out and they get the stuff. It's not rocket science," she said, laughing.

After that, Walters follows up, but said she has no "magic formula" that gets the Fraser Institute special treatment.

"It's an ongoing frustration, this idea that we're doing our thing here and the newsrooms are just waiting for us to put out our stuff," she said. "I can't emphasise enough how not true that is. If it were that easy, the Fraser Institute wouldn't need me."

So, how do reporters and think-tanks see each other?

The short answer seems to be that most of Canada's daily newspaper reporters view think-tanks with derision, even while they use some of their material. Of the ones contacted, most seemed to be suspicious about the Fraser Institute and CCPA's alleged ideology or belief that there's no story in most of their releases.

"Think-tanks should be called on only when they have something valuable to add to a complex argument," Akin said. "Cant and political rhetoric rarely help foster understanding of a complex topic. As a result, overblown rhetoric, whether it's from the left or the right, is usually of little value to a reporter on a deadline."

Other journalists were more explicit on how a think-tank's perceived ideology could affect its media coverage. The Vancouver Sun business reporter David Baines was pretty clear when asked what he thought of the CCPA.

"I think the CCPA is a joke . . . It doesn't have the money to do any meaningful research, and, as far as I can see, it's just a lobby group for the NDP," he said. "To suggest that this thing is a real think-tank is ridiculous. All it does is try and attach a few figures and some quasi-research to support its ideological bent. I think newspapers should give them short shrift, and I think The Vancouver Sun gives them more space then they deserve."

But, the Fraser Institute and the CCPA's ideas can also be interesting, because they are often "out of the box," said Ian Urquhart, The Star's legislative columnist.

"The Star's coverage of both think-tanks is barely adequate," Urquhart added. "I would like to see more coverage of all of them, because they bring forward interesting ideas, particularly in comparison to the platitudes of sitting politicians."

What about how think-tanks view the media? For Kerri-Anne Finn, a spokesperson for the CCPA's Ottawa office, the think-tank has "proven itself" to Canada's media.

"[The CCPA] has a really good track record for doing credible, accessible, and relevant research," she said. "Obviously the media has picked up on that."

Whether a think-tank is newsworthy will change as newspaper leadership changes, added Finn's colleague Erika Shaker, when asked if CCPA employees ever feel marginalised by Canadian dailies.

"I think [marginalisation] ebbs and flows," she said. "However, a good news story is a good news story, and I would like to think that that is the underlying issue for journalists."

As for the Fraser Institute, its relationship with Canadian daily newspapers is good whether they're on side or not, said Walters.

"No matter what a newspaper's orientation, I think they see us as a source of information," she said. "We've gotten a lot of material on their pages, and it may not always be as favourable as we would like, but we've seen our coverage go up. Hopefully, we'll see our coverage change as we do more research."

About a month after I met Suzanne Walters, I wondered if Canadians knew what impact the Fraser Institute and CCPA have had on the national debate. Do people know they exist? So, I decided to find out. I walked to the Fraser Institute's head office and decided to see if I could find 10 people who knew what it was.

As time passed, it became clear I wasn't going to succeed. Most people I encountered didn't know what I was talking about - people like Mick Cromien, a youngish-looking employee at a gas station not two blocks up from the Fraser Institute's office.

"Sorry, man," he said. "No clue."

Admittedly, I'd put Cromien on the spot, so I told him the Fraser Institute was a think-tank that studied the role markets can play in public policy matters. In fact, it's just over there, I said, pointing to the office on top of the Lexus dealership.

Joe McArthur was the only person I encountered that day who had an idea what the Fraser Institute was.

"Yeah, that's the right-wing think-tank, isn't it?" said the Vancouver resident while standing outside the Fraser Institute's front door.

"Really? Why do you call it that Mr. McArthur?"

"Well, because of the reports they produce. For some reason I want to associate [former National Post columnist] David Frum with it. Does he still work there?"

"No, Mr. McArthur, not to my knowledge."

"Oh, well, they think the same way, anyway," he said.

There are probably thousands of Vancouverites who know what the Fraser Institute and CCPA are, I just didn't find them that day in February. Still, if the average person has little or no idea what the Fraser Institute and CCPA are, what does that say about the impact these think-tanks have had on the media and the public?

Dan Cayo, a former ancouver Sun editor, said it's hard to assess the individual impact think-tanks have had.

"One of the real problems for think-tanks like the Fraser Institute and the CCPA is that because they are so identified ideologically, I don't think they have much impact on the public either way," he said. "I think the CCPA preaches to those people who believe that message, and the Fraser Institute preaches to those at the opposite end of the spectrum. People in between sort of roll their eyes at both of them."

Still, think-tanks have had a collective impact on the media, said Cayo. Back in the early 1980s, there was a time that if you whispered the words "deficit reduction" in the newsroom, you were a "right wing nut," he said.

"That was the broad reaction," he added. "This idea that governments should not spend more money than they have has really made an impact on the Canadian electorate. Can you point to any think-tank and say they were responsible for that? No. But, they did have an influence through the collective process that think-tanks played a role in."

For Akin, it's impossible to say, what the impact's been, but for him one thing is clear: The public gets too little credit for its intelligence when these sorts of matters are discussed.

"Newspaper readers are not sheep," he said. "They frequently and continuously disagree with a newspaper's coverage of a given issue, and will very quickly point out shoddy methodology and bias by reporters."

Think-tanks also seem to be getting less coverage than they used to because they aren't putting out anything new, said Charles Gordon, a columnist with The Ottawa Citizen.

"Or, it may be that some of the ideological fires have dimmed a bit since the free-market question is not as controversial as it once was," he explained. "If the Fraser Institute said today that taxes were too high, it might not get much coverage, because it's been heard before. Five years ago, it was a story."

Perhaps the best way to assess the impact think-tanks have had on the media and the public is to ask them. When the Fraser Institute was formed, it spoke a different language than the Trudeau era, said Walters.

"We were talking about deficits and debt, and things like that," she said. "Now, you look at how the debate has changed and how the economic position of the government has changed versus when we started. We'd like to think we were there poking that into being."

Journalists have also come to rely on the CCPA over the seven years she's been there, said Shaker.

"They'll call completely unsolicited to say not only 'What are you guys doing lately?' and 'Can you please add me to your list?' but also 'Do you know what's coming out?', 'What kinds of stories should we be watching out for?', 'Do you have any suggestions for people we may want to contact in this area?', things like that," she said.

Canadians are also getting tired of hearing the same story from government that things "have to be this way" and there's "nothing we can do about it," added Finn.

"People are seeing the effects, and they are thinking that there has to be another way. And, what we're saying is that, you know, there actually is another way."

Canadian University Press

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