When right-wing governments across Canada slash social programs and protections, they turn to research institutes and think tanks who eagerly prepare policy papers to support them. It is this stratum of researchers and scholars who provide the ideological underpinning for conservative political strategy.

Starting in the 1970s, ongoing cuts have been made to Canada’s social assistance programs, leaving the country’s welfare net threadbare. The justifications for these cuts were often provided by right-wing think tanks who advanced the principle that the poor are innately inferior and undeserving of assistance. These rationales evince a passion for the ideas of Charles Murray and other social scientists whose policy advice hinges on racist pseudoscience. In their telling, the problems of social inequality can largely be explained by welfare mothers’ “illegitimate births” and the genetic inferiority of people of color.

A review of the proposals used by Canadian conservatives to gut social spending has found that the case made by these think tanks was based as much on a racist and classist worldview as on statistical models. The resulting policies, advertised as sensible fiscal prudence, were in fact anchored in a social Darwinism that is deeply contemptuous of people of color and the poor.