The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is blasting the federal and provincial governments of Canada, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia for funnelling more than $528,000 in taxpayer money to Fernwood Publishing—a company that proudly declares itself “politically driven, not profit driven.”

Socialist strategy guides? Climate poetry?

All on YOUR dime.

It’s wrong for TAXPAYERS to be on the hook for publishing houses pushing fringe political propaganda.

NEWS RELEASE:https://t.co/cagYtpTtQm

— Devin Drover (@DevinDrover) November 10, 2025

“It’s wrong for taxpayers to be on the hook for publishing houses pushing fringe political propaganda,” said Devin Drover, the CTF’s Atlantic Director. “If people don’t want to actually buy a book, taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for it.”

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According to the CTF, Fernwood received $306,900 from the federal government between 2020 and 2024, plus $135,000 from Nova Scotia through its Publishers Assistance Fund in 2024. The company also collected $86,250 from Manitoba since 2020 under the province’s Publisher Marketing Assistance Program.

Meanwhile, Manitoba alone spends about $114,000 each year on subsidies to book publishers for marketing.

Fernwood Publishing, which operates out of Halifax and Winnipeg, says its political approach allows it to publish “radical analysis” and “contribute to structural change”.

Recent titles include Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left, which explores what it calls “the uneasy truths the left needs to confront if it is to build a genuinely liberatory alternative to capitalism.” Despite heavy public funding, the book currently ranks #472 in “Communist & Socialist Ideologies” and has no reviews on Amazon.ca.

Other Fernwood releases include I’ll Get Right On It, a collection of poems about “working life in the climate crisis,” and Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroads, which discusses how socialists should act in 2025.

“If a business is explicitly ‘not profit driven,’ taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for that bad business plan,” said Gage Haubrich, the CTF’s Prairie Director. “Publishers should make their money by selling books people want to read, not getting handouts from three different levels of government.”

The CTF argues governments should stop using taxpayer dollars to subsidize ideological activism disguised as culture, especially when ordinary Canadians are struggling with inflation and record-high taxes.