It’s time Canadians took a closer look at the Broadbent Institute. The left-wing think-tank has kept a low profile since its 2011 creation.

But with an election around the corner they’re kicking it into high gear. This past weekend’s second annual Progress Summit held in Ottawa shows that they’re the most partisan think-tank in the country.

“Canadian democracy has declined under PM Harper” is the title of a piece in the Hill Times, summarizing a panel talk.

“Harper playing dangerous game that could divide Canadians,” read one iPolitics headline about a speech by Charles Taylor.

“Harper destroying society that ‘we created,’” read another about a war vet denouncing the PM at the summit.

This is the type of negativity you’d expect to be featured in a war room recruitment session, not a reasoned think-tank gathering. Sure, they're not running pro-NDP campaign ads, but it's pretty hard to take their relentless anti-Harper stance as anything but partisan antics.

The institute’s website says it’s “an independent, non-partisan organization.” Let’s fact check that.

The group was founded by and named after former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. He’s also the chairman. Former NDP chief of staff Rick Smith is the executive director.

In an interview with The Tyee over the weekend, Smith explained that "Job number one is to criticize… to draw the curtain back on the craziness of the Conservative government's ideas…"

Really? Your primary goal is negativity? A supposedly non-partisan think-tank’s main job is to crap all over a government in office?

When the institute was first opened it was described as the progressive antidote to all those centre-right think-tanks and advocacy groups out there. But it's way more partisan than any comparable outfit.

Anyone who thinks the Manning Centre is a PMO mouthpiece didn’t get the memo that Preston Manning isn’t exactly a Harper fanboy these days.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is clearly non-partisan. They routinely shame conservatives who get up to fiscal shenanigans.

In 2013 they awarded their TaxFighter Award to former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, who was considered a thorn in Harper’s side. NDP MP Paul Dewar was even on hand to speak.

No one would dispute that the Fraser Institute operates from a free market perspective. But their work is limited to research publications and usually focuses on broad economic issues, rather than nitpicking proposed legislation.

That’s why they hold charitable status. Does the Broadbent Institute? On one of their web pages asking for money, they explain, “Due to its political work, the Broadbent Institute is not a registered charity.”

Political work, eh? Would that perhaps be, uh, “partisan” political work?

Their biggest spin job is their website Press Progress, which claims to “break stories the traditional media misses.”

The media should be offended by this, because it’s evidently false. The so-called “latest news” items on their landing page at the time of writing are anything but.

Two of them are rebuttals of reports by the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Curiously, there is no author listed for either of these posts. They’re just unattributed hatchet jobs tossed online.

Then there are videos of people smack-talking Harper. That’s all fine, but just don’t call yourself a breaking news organization. It’s a partisan blog. Nothing more.

Sometimes they even take media snippets and selectively edit them, presumably to push their agenda. They did this to Sun News Network and I remain flattered.

It’s the default in Canadian society to think that because an organization is progressive that they’re on the side of the angels and above scrutiny.

But if you believe that talking points, excessive spin and over-the-top rhetoric has harmed our democracy, then Ed Broadbent and his pals are only making matters worse. Don’t let these guys off the hook.

Maybe you think the Harper gang does bad things too. Fine. But then the questions you’ve got to ask yourself are: Do two wrongs make a right? Should it be a race to the bottom?

Negativity. Hyper-partisanship. Spin. These are things the Broadbent Institute is spreading. Expect it to get worse as the election nears.