A recognized investigative journalist sounds the alarm on the influence of “a powerful lobby of the radical right” in North America and is concerned about its links with the Montreal Economic Institute (IEDM), the PA and the Project 2025.
“In addition to being a member of the Atlas network, the Montreal Economic Institute is an executive partner of the Heritage Foundation,” underlines André Noël, independent journalist. In 2012, he left the Montreal daily where he had worked for around thirty years to become an investigator at the Charbonneau commission. He has since been an independent journalist.
Attac Quebec
The Heritage Foundation, in addition to appearing alongside the MEI on the list of members of the Atlas network, “a powerful lobby of the radical right”, is behind the 2025 Project, recalled André Noël during a given conference at the CSN head office.
Project 2025 proposes granting more power to the president, replacing all federal officials with people from the radical right as well as greater use of the military to enforce the law.
This project is criticized for its authoritarian and Christian nationalist positions. On Saturday, Donald Trump named one of the co-authors of the project, Russell Vaught, for the Office of Management and Budget last Saturday.
A “far-right” network
“The members of the Atlas network campaign for the privatization of health and education, for the elimination of environmental rules and for the systematic denial of global warming,” illustrates the independent journalist.
These members include numerous American and Canadian “think tanks” which notably represent the interests of the oil and tobacco industries.
Canada Strong and Free, a “think tank” with which the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Pierre Poilievre has already openly associated, is one of the Canadian members of this network.
Assumed affiliations
The EIDM does not hide its association with this network. “There is nothing particularly sinister about it,” indicates the IEDM’s communications strategist, Renaud Brossard, who assures that the MEI has “no link with the 2025 project”.
The director of the MEI, Michel Kelly-Gagnon, himself admits to having relations with officials of the Heritage Foundation in a text published on the MEI website.
Mr. Brossard also claims that the Atlas network “is nothing problematic. »
A message to the media
Mr. Noël worries that the strongest “pressure” that this “far-right lobby” will exert in the near future will be directly on journalists and the media. It would already be apparent.
The organizations mentioned are not listed on the Lobby Register.
This conference followed the general election meeting of the board of directors of the Attac-Québec citizens’ association. This association of left-wing organizations specializes in popular education, particularly on lobbies, ecological transition, tax havens and the preservation of public services.
