At public expense

It's no great surprise that there's more to Jim Flaherty's use of public resources to direct money toward a right-wing think tank than meets the eye. But Joe Kuchta has uncovered a few details that I wouldn't have seen coming.

In particular, there's the fact that Crowley was getting paid out of federal coffers at exactly the time when he was founding the propaganda machine which Flaherty is now pushing:

On November 7, 2006, Rob Wright, Deputy Minister of Finance, announced that Crowley had been appointed the 2006-2007 Clifford Clark Visiting Economist in the Department of Finance.

And in case there was any doubt that Crowley was in the position for the balance of 2007, Crowley's own current think tank proudly proclaims that he held the post until 2008:

Dated: 20/3/08

Halifax – Brian Lee Crowley, the founding president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), has returned to head the public policy think tank.

Crowley was seconded a year and a half ago to the country’s most prestigious economic policy advisory post in Ottawa: the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist in the federal Department of Finance.

Which makes it highly significant that he was working for the Cons' government at public expense at the time the Macdonald-Laurier Institute was officially founded:

Corporations Canada records show that the Macdonald-Laurier Institute was incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act - Part II on March 12, 2007. The directors at the time of incorporation or as indicated on the last annual summary as of March 31 of the year of filing were: Brian Lee Crowley, David McD. Mann, and Allan Gotlieb.

So to the extent Flaherty is now using his office to shill for the Institute, it wouldn't appear to be the first time public resources found their way into backing the group. Instead, Crowley set up the group while he was personally paid to work for the public.

Not surprisingly, Joe also digs up details about contracts directed toward another Crowley company, as well as donations from Crowley to the Cons. But it seems most damning that the the public isn't just paying for Flaherty to promote the Macdonald-Laurier Institute now, but apparently bore the cost of getting Crowley to set it up in the first place.