Think tanks use a variety of media to spread their messages — the Internet, in-house publications, conferences, forums, even radio — but they tend to concentrate on Canadian newspapers, which often report the release of a new think tank report as though some actual news event had taken place. And the papers give the think tanks access to op-ed pages as well, where mere opinion doesn’t need to disguise itself as news. Many or most newspapers, and the news services that supply so much of their content, often (but not consistently) try to provide readers with a little context by describing a particular think tank as either politically left or right. I’ll apply the same principle here in taking a look at how a representative cross-section of think tanks — the right-wing Fraser Institute, the more moderate C. D. Howe Institute, and the left-of-centre Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives — fared in three similarly diverse newspapers over a two-year period. I chose the dates May 1, 2003, to May 1, 2005, because the stretch of time seemed long enough to reveal general trends, and because it was largely free of economic downtowns, terrorist attacks, or other calamities that might skew the results.
During the period in question, the National Post, in one context or another, mentioned these three think tanks a combined 373 times, with the C. D. Howe getting the most hits. The moderate Globe was no slouch either, mentioning one or another of these think tanks 305 times. The liberal Toronto Star, the country’s highest-circulation daily, ran 210 mentions of various sorts, including 41 for the Canadian Centre on Policy Alternatives. Taken together, the three think tanks got space in these important newspapers — whether positively or negatively, with or without contextualizing adjectives — more than once each day. If one takes into account not only the other media, but also the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute, the Parkland Institute, the relatively new Martin Prosperity Institute, or any number of the hundred or so Canadian institutions generally referred to as think tanks, one sees that they blanket the landscape like a heavy snowfall covering the Prairies.
Given their corporate funders and ideological leanings, most Canadian think tanks tend toward predictable viewpoints. Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa put it well in the Globe last February when he wrote, “Take the Conference of Defence Associations, a think tank that got $500,000 from dnd [Department of National Defence] last year. That money comes not with strings, but with an entire leash.” Whether you believe think tanks encourage or limit democratic action, individually and collectively they certainly nudge public opinion (and hence politics) this way and that. To which one might add that they also offer homes for former politicians to retire to — and for newer ones to incubate in. Stephen Harper’s opponents often charge that he never held a real job before entering Parliament. Not true. For years, he headed up the National Citizens Coalition, a think tank.
The term “think tank” has traditionally been associated with the rand Corporation. Founded in 1945 by Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, the commanding general of the US Army Air Forces, and a group of defence personnel and contractors, it offered advice to the Pentagon about the development and procurement of new weapons systems. rand contravened the perception of think tanks as clusters of benign scholars musing about the state and the universe, or of disparate intellectuals who could be retained by those wishing a fresh perspective on some matter of public concern. From the beginning, think tanks have been more focused than that.
Most of the serious research on Canadian think tanks has been done by Donald E. Abelson, chair of the department of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His groundbreaking book Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutions has proven enormously influential since its appearance in 2002. Part of its appeal is the way it brings Canadian think tanks into sharper focus by comparing them with those in the US. This and Abelson’s other works on the subject have led some readers — this one, certainly — to infer that whereas US think tanks, historically, have often been contracted to do work on long-range projects in defence and foreign policy (that the American government felt unable to undertake efficiently), Canadian think tanks have generally dealt with economic affairs. Founded in 1954, the Conference Board of Canada is a good example. It now has hundreds of staff and an annual budget of nearly $36 million, and is Canada’s largest such institution.
The great boom in think tanks came in the 1970s and 1980s, which Abelson calls the “advocacy think tank era.” He writes:
What distinguished advocacy think tanks from the earlier types . . . was not their desire to study public policy issues but their profound determination to market their ideas to various target audiences. Rather than reflecting on important policy issues from the comfort of their book-lined offices, [they] understood the importance of immersing themselves in the political arena.
Listing heavily to political starboard, most often they were in the business of business, and used corporate donations (the sort no longer permitted to fund Canadian federal political campaigns) to influence the public via the mass media. Their goals were those of the new conservatism. In Canada, this meant corporate and personal tax breaks, closer ties with the US, private health care, an elected Senate, and, more recently, increased military spending.
On the basis of cleverness, slickness, name recognition, and influence on public policy, the Fraser Institute is probably the country’s most successful think tank. Founded in 1974 in reaction to British Columbia’s first New Democratic government, the Fraser now has more than 3,000 members, an annual budget of over $10 million, and offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Tampa. Like other Canadian think tanks, the Fraser emphasizes its research and educational programs and doesn’t use the term lobbying to describe its activities. The Canada Revenue Agency, which is responsible for monitoring the tax status of Canadian charities, is strict in such matters. Registered charities like the Fraser Institute cannot use more than 10 percent of their donations for the direct lobbying of governments. (Official paid lobbyists are registered as such, are not charities collecting donations and issuing tax receipts, and represent a different order of advocacy.)
Still, the ground is mottled by grey patches. The Conference of Defence Associations describes itself as a “non-partisan, independent, non-profit organization [that] expresses its ideas and opinions with a view to influencing government security and defence policy.” It is not a charity. But the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, founded in 1987 and operating from the same Ottawa address, is.
