Kissin' cousins and the think tank circle jerk in the PMO.

Harper likes to keep everything "in the family" as it were.

They may not be blood relatives, but they are all related somehow somewhere.
Six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

More like the 1st degree.

Headline: PMO chief lobbied by Barrick Gold despite personal ties

Pointed questions are beginning to swirl around Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, and whether he used his position to further the financial interests of friends at Barrick Gold Corp.

Wright met with Barrick Gold twice in May of this year, and the PMO sees nothing wrong with that of course.

Peter Munk, the Chairman of Barrick Gold, also a director/trustee of the Aurea Foundation which Wright was also a director until shortly before his appointment to the PMO. That is outlined in that article that is linked, but dig just a little deeper......

Aurea, what a facinating place BTW. Love the way they list themselves:

Designation: Public Foundation

Category: Education - Charitable Corporations

Purpose: Welfare - Disaster Funds

They give money to many disaster aid organizations like the Fraser Institute and another old ACR fave, The Frontier Centre for Public policy. 

With the EXACT equal amount distributed to schools and education just to make it look plausible.....Ummmm.

Peter Munk, the Chairman of Barrick also gave a few million to the University of Toronto. With a stipulation.

Munk’s latest donation to the University of Toronto came with strings attached to ensure that the school would "fit with the political views and sensitivities of Peter Munk." McQuaig writes that "according to Munk's written agreement with the university, the Munk donations will be paid over an extended time period, with much of the money to be paid years from now — and subject to the Munk family's approval of the school.

"fit with the political views and sensitivities of Peter Munk"  Now what would that be? unrestricted crooked capitalism, cruelty and corporatocracy would be my guess on that one. Could be wrong. Highly doubt that I am.

In that list of "Charitable"organizations they also list the University of Calgary, home of climate change denial. The Calgary school.

All of this stuff is creepy eh? I always think it is like a Mafia Money laundering operation in many ways. 

Love this part!

Indeed, in a 2011 magazine article, Peter Munk disclosed that Wright is godfather to Anthony Munk's son.

Aurea also lists a Kenneth Whyte as a governor. No conflict of interest there either. Well, only if you are part if that inner circle. It kind of smells bad to the rest of us peons.

Ken is the Publisher of Maclean's. He is also  a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto, and a member of the board of governors of the Donner party...errrr Canadian Foundation. iu7

Oh, and of course Andrew Coyne, another Mclean's alum.... 

Vince Borg, is a Trustee/director.  Also on The Canadian Journalism Foundation.

Double Dipping

We are paying twice for all of this on a regular basis with the loss of tax revenues for fake charitable organizations and then the losses suffered to us all through their pro corporate policies that hurt the rest of us....But wth Wright in the PMO we are paying many times over.

And it seems to not bother the media a whit. Mostly because so many of their editors and "reporters" and opinionators actually are a part of this think tank circle jerk.

Of course this is all a conflict of interest. 

Duh.

Cognitive dissonance on a national level or what?