Now This Is Truly, Deeply Deplorable

I think most people have heard of the right-wing Fraser Institute, the 'non-partisan' think tank that receives charitable tax status while promoting a largely neoliberal agenda. Well, they now seem to have reached a new low in their propaganda efforts:

PressProgress reports that

the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board recently circulated materials promoting an “essay contest” organized by the right-wing Fraser Institute to principals and office administrators at high schools across Ottawa.

According to contest guidelines, high school students are being offered prizes up to $1,500 for essays exploring why “increasing the minimum wage” is a “bad policy”.

Lest you think this is an honest exploration of ideas, consider this:

The promotional document encourages students to visit StudentEssayContest.org where the Fraser Institute portrays “the idea of raising the minimum wage” as a “contentious topic” and claims minimum wage increases primarily harm “young people and immigrants.”

The Fraser Institute also supplies students with anti-minimum wage talking points from a discredited Fraser Institute report that falsely portrays minimum wage earners as “young adults,” who are mostly “living with their parents or other relatives.”

Typical of the 'facts' espoused by the Institute, the above information is erroneous:

Statistics Canada data shows that among Canadians earning less than $15 per hour – in other words, people who would see an immediate raise following a $15/hr minimum wage increase – the vast majority of low-wage workers (59%) are actually 25 years or older.

Today, more than ever, critical thinking is of paramount importance. school boards, which at least in theory are dedicated to the cultivation of such a crucial skill. Is it not a little ironic that they should be so easily hoodwinked by an egregious attempt, not to foster such thinking, but to reflect and inculcate corporate group-think and ideology?