Thread by @goldsbie: "The Munk Debates throwing a Twitter tantrum is the first great thing of the election. You would hope that a private foundation dedicated to, […]"

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@goldsbie

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The Munk Debates throwing a Twitter tantrum is the first great thing of the election.

https://twitter.com/munkdebate/status/1169658552459431936

You would hope that a private foundation dedicated to, among other things, "the strengthening of the free market system," would appreciate that this is the free market at work.

For their 2015 event: "Tickets for the debate, priced from $30 to $95 each, will go on sale to Munk Debate premium members on Wednesday, September 9 at 10:00 AM EDT. Any remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday, September 11 at noon EDT."

It's arguably the most elite tenant of a venue that's also home to TIFF galas and the Toronto Symphony.

The Munk Debates are the "signature initiative" of the Aurea Foundation. What else does Aurea get up to?

Disbursing money to the Fraser Institute, basically: $737,973 in 2017-18.

They also made smaller donations to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the Montreal Economic Institute, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the C.D. Howe Institute, and the Beth Oloth Charitable Foundation (which had its charitable status revoked for indirectly funding the IDF).

"a neutral public forum"

October 30, 2018 – Toronto, Canada<br />
<br />
Rudyard Griffiths is the organiser and chair of the Munk Debates.<br />
<br />
The following are his public comments on November 2 Munk Debate on populism featuring<br />
Steven Bannon and David Frum. See here for the original press release on the debate.<br />
<br />
“For over a decade the Munk Debates have provided a neutral public forum to discuss<br />
challenging issues and ideas…

The Munk Debates represented about a fifth of the Aurea Foundation's expenses in their last reported tax year, with nearly all of the rest going to the right-wing causes noted above.

That said, if the Aurea Foundation Had One Job, you would think it'd be spelling "Munk" correctly on their tax forms:

Director/trustee and like official # 2<br />
Full name: MELANIE MUNL<br />
Term Start date: 2006-11-15<br />
Term End date:<br />
Position: DIRECTOR<br />
At Arms Length with other Directors? Yes

The Munk Debates have spent $15,000 in the last week on dozens of Facebook ads asking people to pressure Justin Trudeau into taking part in their debate: facebook.com/ads/library/?a…

The Munk Debates are also very proud of their advisory board member for going to bat for them in his newspaper column: Facebook ad from Munk Debates: