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| wh Douglas & Company Limited
oly Boyle & Associates Ltd.
N Labatt Limited

}Abitibi-Price Inc.
: - Molson Companies Ltd.
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ae ee Bank of Canada
t+ Eaton Company Limited
7 ect Western Airlines Ltd.

~*tnational Trustee
Dae" Pacific Limited
4 Re Inc.
}iitish Columbia Packers Limited
oeelllac Fairview Corp. Ltd.
IBM Development Corp.
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on Development Limited
; Sa Holdings Ltd.

CO Limited

riot Dominion Bank

Bei Hager & North Ltd.
i beast Transmission Company Limited
1 Nora 'ngton Financial Corporation Limited
; bean Mines Limited
tea illan Bloedel Limited
Nadian Indemnity Company
i hope Telegraph & Telephone Company
Wes Tton Securities Limited

a urne International Industries

Or Investments Ltd.
Dadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
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1 Senstar Limited

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| The Fraser Institute

| The Fraser institute
ee

EL Harrison
vay Mecitl
Th Monkman
MA. Walker
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4

(1) and director Michael Walker.

Public service positions and salary levels.

, itea controls: The Socreds have now
Ton Tent. controls and Housing Minister
Y Brummett has argued that there is a
Doliciee let the private market operate —
[Fraser 1 which were lifted directly from the
AD Institute’s publication: Rent Control:
°pular Paradox.

j sity Ublic sector unions: Echoing an In-
4 argue book by Sandra Christensen which
Wor — wrongly — that public sector
Diese, are cushioned from the market
Benes at work in the private sector, the
tt government introduced the Public
“Sane Restraint Act, the Compensation
out mization Act (and the amendments laid
: Bill 11) and announced its plans to

~ ie staff by 25 per cent.

Malcolmson and Stainsby also refute that
poy! that the measure introduced by the
“ ‘rhment along with the budget are
Rath t’” measures.
majo er, they state, those measures mark a
ting T step towards a re-direction of spen-
Social Orities away from the delivery of
“Dora, Services the towards expanded cor-
Thewesidization and promotion.”’
Cterecte Institute has been eager to
Deng: any government taxation and
linen policies as constituting a ‘free
Soca, fF various interest’ groups in
own? the study concludes. ‘Yet in their
they positions and recommendations, as
ermmen eo form in various provincial
Offers t policies, will have the effect of
mrovine free multi-course banquet to the
_ —~“Nce's corporate sector.”’

Institute's new influence seen
as part of business’ strategy

The following are excerpts from a lec-
ture on the Fraser Institute presented to the
Centre for Socialist Education by centre
director Ben Swankey Oct. 19. The first’
part of the lecture dealt extensively with the
policies of the Institute as outlined in its
various publications. S28

ow is it that we get an organization

with the philosophy of the Fraser

Institute here in British Columbia? I
believe we have to bear several things in
mind. One is that the economic situation
has fundamentally changed in the past 10
years throughout the western world. We
have now returned to a period in the
development of capitalism in which there
are deep cyclical economic crises. The crisis
in 1974 was the first big one after the war
and now there is the current one.

These cyclical economic crises are taking
place against a background that is vastly
different from what was 40 or 50 years ago.
The western world is in an energy crisis as
well as a monetary crisis, with one national
currency after another fluctuating and
causing great economic distress in the
country concerned.

There is mass unemployment
throughout the western world and ab-
solutely no indication whatsoever that this
is going to lessen to any appreciable degree.
Even those who say that prosperity is
around the corner, that the economic
crisis has been beaten and that we are now

-on the road to recovery — all of them ad-

mit that our unemployment rate going in to
this so-called period of recovery will be at
least 12 per cent.

The cutbacks, restraints, at-
tacks on living standards, at-
tacks on trade unions — these
are all part of the strategy being
employed by governments and
big corporations to maintain
their profits. :

So it seems to me that our economic
system is faced with absolutely insoluble
problems. There is no way that these pro-
blems that I have listed can be solved and
the type of economic system that we have
maintained. So-called restraint policies do
not get at any of these problems — they just
make them worse. There is only one way in
this declining economic situation that pro-
fits can be kept up and that is by increased
exploitation of the people that produce the
profits. There is no other way. The days of
reforms are just about finished I think,
reforms that we won during the war and

after the war such as unemployment in- ©

surance, indexed pensions and medicare.
“Now the whole objective is to take away
everything that has been won in the past 30
or 40 years and that’s why we have cut-
backs and restraints, attacks on living stan-
dards, attacks on trade unions, attacks on
democratic rights. These are all part of the
strategy being employed by governments
and big corporations to maintain their pro-
its
: There is another significant new feature
of the last few years and that is something I

am sure you have all read about. Itis called —

the rise of the ‘New Right’ throughout the

- western world. First of all, we have the

‘Jitary-industrial complex that U.S.
eet Bisenhower spoke about the day
ft his presidency. :
ar = Pee what’s called the
Bilderberg Commission and I’m sure some
of you read about it in a column by Harry
Rankin. It w established in 1954. It is a
global club o big corporations, comp

tions the secret services of the countries that

are attached to It. ms
members are American. Its meetings are

BEN SWANKEY ... Fraser Institute’s
policies are those of big business.

attended by the heads of NATO and the
CIA.

A second big global invisible govern-
ment that we have in the world is called the
Trilateral Commission. It was established
in 1972 and 1973. It was set up because they
felt that the Bilderberg Club was getting
too discredited and was too inflexible.
What they needed was a more
sophisticated type of global, international,
invisible government. It also is composed
of the heads of big corporations. It includes
many of the members of the Bilderberg
Club. Its aims are to stop the spread of
socialism and if possible to destroy it by
means of a nuclear war. They want to
redistribute the wealth in the western world
through increased exploitation and they
want to centralize the state apparatus of
each country and erode democracy.

Canadian members of the Trilateral
Commission, and these are listed partially
ina book by Peter C. Newman entitled The
Canadian Establishment. They include
Robert Bonner, present head of B.C.
Hydro and former member of B.C.

‘government; Mitchell Sharp from

Brazilian Traction who now holds a senior
government position in the Northwest Ter-
ritories for the federal government;
Donald S. MacDonald and Michael Kirby,
the senior adviser to Pierre Trudeau. These
are the two big multinational organiza-
tions. There are also separate organiza-
tions of the big corporations in each coun-
try which operate behind the scenes but
really pull the strings and decide govern-
ment policy. In Canada, we havea new one
called the Business Council on National

A new class of capitalist has
arisenin B.C... . out of the par-
ticular conditions created by
Social Credit. It provides a very
receptive audience for the
Milton Friedman type of
economics advocated by the
Fraser Institute.

Issues, established in 1977. You may ask
why wasit established, when there already
exists the Canadian Chamber of Com-
merce and various Boards of Trade. But
the Chamber of Commerce and the Boards
of Trade also represent a lot of small
business people and these big corporations
wanted one that they would control com-
pletely, in which they wouldn’t have to take

into consideration the views of small.

business. So they set up the Business Coun-
cil on National Issues. Its members include
the 150 chief executive officers of major
corporations. ‘
Another group is the Mont Pelerin
Society. If there is a right-wing group in the

world, this one would be called the right -

right-wing group. It recently held a world
convention here in Vancouver which as ad-
dressed by Premier Bennett (the first time
in its history that a convention was held in
Canada — Ed.) Reporters were not allow-
ed in because Fraser Institute director
Michael Walker said that if reporters were
there, Bennett might feel inhibited in what
he said.

Why was the Fraser Institute set up in
British Columbia? It is a question I think
that all of us have asked ourselves and real-
ly-the answer isn’t that hard to get. The
right wing philosophy of Social Credit is
reinforced by the new, greedy, grasping
group of people that have come up since
Social Credit took over in B.C. A whole
new class of capitalist has arisen in B.C.
which includes such companies as Jim Pat-
tison and Finning Tractor. A number of
these outfits all arose-out of the particular
conditions created by Social Credit and of
course, they provide a very receptive au-
dience for the Milton Friedman type of
economics advocated by the Fraser In-
stitute.

It is no accident that the Fraser
Institute arose at just about the
same time as the New
Democratic Party ...and
became active in helping the
corporations in their propagan-
da against the NDP govern-
ment.

Also in B.C. there has been polariza-
tion both of politics and of labor and
management for many years. B.C. has
prided itself in having one of the strongest
trade union movements in Canada and
‘because of this polarization I think the peo-
ple behind the Fraser Institute decided that
this is the place to break the trade union
movement - where it is strongest. It isno ac-
cident that the Fraser Institute arose, for
example, at just about the same time as the
New Democratic Party was elected. As a
matter of fact it got into operation in
1975 after the NDP was elected and
became active in helping the corporations
in their propaganda against the NDP
government.

They are using their base in B.C. to
spread across Canada. They predict that
the policies now being pursued in B.C.
under the budget and these 26 bills will be
followed by other provincial governments
and by the next federal government. I
wouldn’t hesitate to say at all that if
Mulroney becomes the next prime minister
of this country then we are going to have
the same type of policies federally as we
have in B.C. today. , :

It seems to me that their policy really is to
set up an authoritarian corporate state in
which unions will be emasculated, in which
democracy will be eroded, in which there

* will be a minimum of human rights and in

which the corporations will directly and
openly .control the government and
government and the corporations will be
the same thing.

The Fraser Institute represents the most
reactionary section of business in B.C. and
Canada. We would be making a mistake if
in our criticism of the provincial govern-
ment and in our protests against the pro-
vincial government we limited our protests
to it and the Fraser Institute. The Fraser In-
stitute is the mouth, the organ of big
business. If we say that the Fraser Institute
stands for all the things which I have listed
then we must at the same time say that the
CPR, MacMillan Bloedel, Daon Develop-
ment and all the corporations listed here

’ stand for exactly the same things.

It isn’t just a few of far right kooks in the
Fraser Institute that advocate these things.
This is the policy of big business in the pro-
vince of B.C. This is what we are up against
and this is what we must defeat.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 2, 1983—Page