Canadians take part in secretive Bilderberg conference
Last Updated: June 9, 2010 8:02pm
OTTAWA - Forget the G8 and the G20.
If you believe the conspiracy theorists, the real global agenda is set at the secretive, clandestine Bilderberg Conference, a mysterious who's-who of movers and shakers that meet every spring.
At least five Canadians attended the four-day meeting in Spain earlier this month, including: CBC's Peter Mansbridge; former premier and ambassador Frank McKenna; Robert Prichard, the president of Ontario's Metrolinx; Indigo Books' Heather Reisman; and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.
Those choice Canucks sat down with Henry Kissinger, Bill Gates, Google boss Eric Schmidt and former U.S. Defense Policy board chairman Richard Perle, among 120 others from mostly Western Europe and the United States.
Almost since the secretive annual meetings began in 1954, ostensibly as a co-operative dialogue between North America and Western Europe to tackle global issues jointly, conspiracy theories have abounded about what actually happens behind the closed doors.
Some believe the group ¬ almost all of whom change from year to year - pick and choose who will win elections around the world, control the economy and fabricate recessions, and scheme to depose leaders who don't kowtow to the international cabal's desire of world domination.
One of the most prominent conspiracy theories suggests Bilderberg delegates are plotting to form a one-world government.
And while people are free to meet anywhere they like for whatever reasons - think of the Masonic Lodge - a public spending watchdog has issues with Campbell using public funds to attend the meetings.
"It's not clear what the taxpayers of British Columbia would get from him going," said Kevin Gaudet, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
"He has to come clean on what the benefit to taxpayers is. Saying it was a networking meeting with mucky mucks internationally isn't good enough. He'd better come up with a better excuse than that."
A spokesman for Campbell said the talks focused on "economic issues" and that he, "attended as the Premier of B.C. and as such, his expenses were paid by the gov't (sic) of B.C."
Although Mansbridge did attend, CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said the public broadcaster didn't pay the chief correspondent's way.
"He went on his own dime, on his own time," Keay said.
According to a 2008 press release from the American Friends of the Bilderberg Group, there are no resolutions proposed at the meetings and no policy statements are ever issued.
"Participants are chosen for their experience, their knowledge and their standing; all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity," the statement reads.
The Bilderberg Conference was held in Kanata, just outside Ottawa in 2006.
bryn.weese@sunmedia.ca
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