Sunday, May 4, 2008

Rent-seekers, race-hustlers and beggars

Ezra Levant attended a conference of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) last Friday. He describes the audience of about 100 like this:

These were "anti-racism" grantrepreneurs -- people who had to hustle,
every year, to liberate $50,000 or $75,000 from this government agency or that one, to keep going.They were what economists call "rent-seekers" -- or what Ayn Rand called "moochers and looters".

... a permanent court of race-hustlers and beggars -- and even bigots. And all of them were living off the government teat.

CRRF's executive director, Ayman Al-Yassini ... an ethno-bureaucrat with a big budget, immune from Parliamentary accountability because it's already in his endowment fund.

... a different breed: a hundred low-budget racial "consultants" who care more about their perks [and]...pet projects ...

Echoing a commenter on his blog - Don't hold back Ezra. Let us know how you really feel!

Jason Kenney was there in his role as Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity. He gave a speech which was ‘courteously’ received:

Why had there been no heckles from the hard-left crowd when Kenney spoke?

Why had the foundation's directors and staff been so obsequious to Kenney?

Because they all depended on Kenney and his department for their grants and hand-outs.

And the good news:
... his department's grants have fallen from $18 million last year to $10
million this year. That's a lot of junkets, conferences -- and $2,000 suits --
gone missing from the "anti-racism" movement.
That’s a decent start, Jason. Lop off $10 million more and that job’s done.

It occurs to me that Jason Kenney holds one of those government positions for which it’s blatantly obvious that the Minister’s primary mission should be to completely eliminate his own organization.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Kenny can self eliminate his dept then he surely deserves a big promotion. (real conservative)

Anonymous said...

That's right, rc - he should then be promoted to head another department, say Indian Affairs, where he could attempt to repeat his success.