The Fraser Institute is a libertarian-conservative Canadian public policy think tank and registered charity. It is headquartered in Vancouver, with additional offices in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. It has links to think tanks worldwide through the Economic Freedom Network and is a member of the free-market Atlas Network. In 2020, the Global Go To Think Tank Index Report ranked Fraser as 14th of the "Top Think Tanks Worldwide" and 1 in the "Top Think Tanks in Mexico and Canada".

History

The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 by Michael Walker, an economist from the University of Western Ontario, and businessman T. Patrick Boyle, then a vice-president of MacMillan Bloedel. The institute is named after the Fraser River. According to CBC News, some people allege that Michael Walker helped set up the institute after he received financial backing from forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel, largely to counter British Columbia's NDP government, then led by premier Dave Barrett. Antony Fisher, who had founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in the United Kingdom, was a co-founder. It obtained charitable status in Canada on October 22, 1974, and in the United States in 1978. It is a member of the Atlas Network, which Fisher founded in 1981. Fisher was appointed acting director in 1975, until Walker became executive director in 1977. According to the January 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), Fraser is number 14 (of 8,200) in the "Top Think Tanks Worldwide" and number 1 in the "Top Think Tanks in Mexico and Canada".

Staff

In April 2012, economist Niels Veldhuis was appointed president. The institute is governed by a board of trustees. Current members of the board include Peter Brown (chairman), Mark Mitchell (vice-chairman), and Edward Belzberg (vice-chairman). Previous Directors at the Fraser Institute include:

Board of Directors

The Fraser Institute's Board of Directors is mainly composed of prominent executives from corporations, financial institutions, investment capital firms, and REITs in Canada. As of August 2023, the Board was composed of:

Associated people

The institute has attracted some well-known individuals to its ranks, including politicians such as former Reform Party of Canada leader Preston Manning, former Progressive Conservative Ontario premier Mike Harris, and former Progressive Conservative Alberta premier Ralph Klein. From 1979 to 1991, the institute's senior economist was Walter Block.

Ideology

The Fraser Institute describes itself as "an independent, non-partisan research and educational organization", and envisions "a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility". The Fraser Institute's stated mission is "to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare of individuals." Forbes has referred to the think tank as libertarian. The New York Times has described the institute as libertarian. Langley Times classified it as right-of-centre libertarian.

Research and publications

The institute self-publishes a variety of reports:

Other initiatives

Children First

Canada's first privately funded program of its kind, Children First: School Choice Trust, offers tuition assistance grants to help parents in financial need send their children to an independent school of their choice. The program was discontinued in 2012.

Donner Awards

Canada's largest non-profit recognition program, the Donner Canadian Foundation Awards for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services recognize non-profit social service agencies that, despite budget limitations, excel in terms of management and service delivery. Winners are selected every year in a variety of categories, and share in $60,000 prize money.

School Chain Showcase

A global database of school chains, the multilingual website allows anyone to connect with school chain operators around the world.

Education programs

The institute periodically hosts free seminars across Canada for students, teachers, and journalists, focusing on key economic concepts and timely issues in public policy. In 2010, the institute hosted eight one-day student seminars, attracting more than 775 participants. The Fraser Institute also offers an internship program, to which more than 431 individuals applied in 2010.

Funding

As a registered charity with the Canada Revenue Agency, the institute files annual registered charity information returns. The institute also files annual returns to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, where it is registered as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. The institute depends on contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations. It does not accept government grants or payments for research; however, individual donors may claim tax credits for donations and corporate donors may claim tax deductions. The Fraser Institute ceased disclosing its sources of corporate funding in the 1980s. In its first full year of operation, 1975, the institute reported revenues of $421,389. In 1988, revenues exceeded $1 million, and in 2003, $6 million. In 2022, the institute reported having almost CA$12 million in annual revenue. The institute has received donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars from foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch, with total donations estimated to be approximately $765,000 from 2006 to 2016. It also received US$120,000 from ExxonMobil in the 2003 to 2004 fiscal period. In 2016, it received a $5 million donation from Peter Munk, a Canadian businessman. In 2012, the Vancouver Observer reported that the Fraser Institute had "received over $4.3 million in the last decade from eight major American foundations including the most powerful players in oil and pharmaceuticals". According to the article, "The Fraser Institute received $1.7 million from 'sources outside Canada' in one year alone, according to the group's 2010 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) return. Fraser Institute President Niels Veldhuis told The Vancouver Observer that the Fraser Institute does accept foreign funding, but he declined to comment on any specific donors or details about the donations."

Criticism

Support from the tobacco industry

In late 1997, the institute set up a research program emulating the UK's Social Affairs Unit, called the Social Affairs Centre. Its founding director was Patrick Basham. The program's funding came from Rothmans International and Philip Morris. When Rothmans was bought by British American Tobacco (BAT) in 1999, its funding ended, and in 2000 the institute wrote to BAT asking for $50,000 per year, to be split between the Social Affairs Centre and the Centre for Risk and Regulation. The letter highlighted the institute's 1999 publication Passive Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of Science and Policy, "which highlighted the absence of any scientific evidence for linking cancer with second-hand smoke [and] received widespread media coverage both in Canada and the United States". At this time the CEO of BAT's Canadian subsidiary, Imasco, was also on the Fraser Institute's board of trustees. In 1999, the Fraser Institute was criticized by health professionals and scientists for sponsoring two conferences on the tobacco industry entitled ''Junk Science, Junk Policy? Managing Risk and Regulation and Should Government Butt Out? The Pros and Cons of Tobacco Regulation.'' Critics charged the institute was associating itself with the tobacco industry's many attempts to discredit authentic scientific work. The Fraser Institute accepted donations worth $100,000 from Philip Morris for "publishing research studies" in 2011–2012. Research produced by the Institute has previously argued that "tobacco taxation causes smuggling", a common claim by corporations in the industry that has been disputed by public health officials and critics as exaggerated and erroneous.