Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa?

CanWest News Service | May 27 2006

OTTAWA - The meetings of a secretive global think-tank would bring 100 of the world's most powerful and influential figures to Ottawa next month and make an Ottawa hotel the host of deliberations on such weighty issues as the direction of global oil markets and potential military action against Iran.

Reports circulating on the Internet say this year's Bilderberg Conference will be held June 8-11 at the Brookstreet Hotel a rumour the hotel would not confirm.

But, if a gathering in Ottawa is anything like past Bilderbergs, invitees will be drawn from the pages of International Who's Who, with a emphasis on political and corporate leadership and strong representation of the oil and banking industries. Guest lists typically include names like Kissinger, Rockefeller and Soros.

The obsessive secrecy that accompanies Bilderberg conferences could also draw Ottawa into the insane conspiracy theories that surround the group. The Bilderberg has been accused of being everything from a Zionist cabal building a single global government to a secret star-chamber that seeks to fix the price of oil and presidential elections.

Even some rational critics suspect the Bilderberg's meetings set the economic and political agenda for much of the industrialized world without any public oversight or accountability. They denounce the Bilderberg as elitist and overly secretive, calling it an anti-democratic gathering of ''the high priests of globalization.''

The conference takes its name from the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands, site of the first meeting in 1954. The group's intent was to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War. But its mandate has evolved, and it now exerts a global influence with interests in foreign policy in general and energy in particular.

Several Canadian political figures have spoken at Bilderbergs, including prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, New Brunswick premiers Bernard Lord and Frank McKenna, and former Ontario premier Mike Harris.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office would not say Tuesday if he's been invited to attend the rumoured Ottawa meetings. Harper attended the 2003 conference in Versailles, France.

Patrice Basille, general manager of the Brookstreet Hotel, said no event associated with the Bilderberg group has been formally booked at the hotel. He said two conferences, one out of Montreal and another out of Toronto, are booked for the weekend of June 8.

''What is the Bilderberg?'' he asked. ''This is the first I've heard about it.''

Journalists aren't allowed to attend the sessions, and staff at the host hotels are told not to confirm or deny any event is scheduled.

Not all of the attendees are comfortable with the pervasive secrecy, says U.K.-based journalist Tony Goslin, who runs a website devoted to uncovering the Bilderberg secrets (www.bilderberg.org). There is enough leakage from past conferences to determine generally what is discussed, he said.

''There is pretty much a preoccupation with the Middle East and oil at most of the meetings,'' he said. ''The whole idea is to meet a consensus, but it is a fairly narrow consensus. Most of the banking power in the Western world is behind Bilderberg policy, and particularly their energy policies.''

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