World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories

A senior World Economic Forum official says Canada should talk about more important things than conspiracy theories targeting his organization.

WEF chief executive Adrian Monck also argues that politicians who espouse these theories should consider whether they are spreading misinformation from bad actors.

“Canada should be talking about a lot of things right now. It shouldn’t really be talking about the World Economic Forum based here in Geneva,” Monck told CBC Radio. The House in an interview aired on Saturday. “You know, there really are bigger issues to think about.”

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF has become a popular target for conspiracy theorists.

It all started when an opinion piece published in 2016 on the WEF website — titled “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, I have no privacy and life has never been better“and intended, according to its author, to “a discussion of some of the advantages and disadvantages of current technological development” – began to attract attention in 2020, after the founder and president of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, wrote his own opinion piece arguing for something he called “the great reset.”

These opinion pieces represent two of the many diverse viewpoints that the WEF commissions and publishes, Monck said.

The “great reset” has since morphed into a conspiracy theory claiming that a cabal of global elites are planning to remake society to eliminate private property and impose an authoritarian world government.

Monck said the “great reset” is really just an idea born out of the pandemic, as governments around the world pour in billions of dollars to keep the economy afloat.

“The idea was that we should also try to suggest to people that they’re thinking about spending it on the kind of long-term things that would help with climate change, that would help with job reskilling and all sorts of bigger, long-term challenges,” he told CBC Radio host Catherine Cullen. The House.

“One of the things our organization tries to do is tell people, ‘Look beyond a week, three months and maybe think about some of the things you could do longer term.’ That was what the Great Reset was aiming to do in the summer of 2020.”

Some Tory MPs have been accused of spreading anti-WEF conspiracy theories. After Conservative MP Colin Carrie told the House of Commons in February that the WEF had “penetrated more than half of the Canadian cabinet”, he was accused of spreading misinformation by the NDP’s Charlie Angus.

Other conservatives have a different point of view. Michelle Rempel Garner, MLA for Calgary Nose Hill, wrote an op-ed earlier this year titled “I went to Davos. The World Economic Forum does not run Canada.‘

“Concerns about ‘the Great Reset’, the World Economic Forum and the apparent plan to turn Canada into a communist state are one of the underlying conspiracy theories that motivated some of the protesters who took part in the demonstration of the recently disbanded truckers in Ottawa,” she wrote. “It’s an increasingly common assumption in conservative circles.”

Monck said that during the pandemic, the WEF became aware that it was being targeted by state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. He said the false conspiracy theory that the WEF is pursuing a “new world order” borrows its structure from old anti-Semitic claims about a Jewish plan for world domination.

“It’s really something that has been picked up by some state-sponsored disinformation actors and taken on a life of its own in certain geographies,” Monck said.

“Unfortunately, Canada was one of those places where… there’s a vulnerability to disinformation. It’s an open society. And… that particular strand of disinformation has gone mainstream.”

Monck said conspiracy theories about the “great reset” and the WEF are run by agents of disinformation and politicians should ask themselves where these theories come from before adopting them.

“I admire anyone who makes the decision to dedicate their life to public life,” he said. “It’s not an easy road, but I think politicians from all walks of life need to look very carefully at the language they’re using and where some of this stuff is coming from, and whether it’s coming from a space of . .. disinformation and in particular anti-Semitism.

“I think they have to look at themselves very carefully and look at themselves very carefully in the mirror.”

We don’t prescribe politics: Monck

Monck said the WEF does not prescribe policy but rather acts as a forum for the exchange of ideas.

Yet the forum has drawn strong political criticism.

Last week, Tory leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre told a cheering crowd of supporters that as prime minister he would ban cabinet ministers from attending “this big fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum” and vowed to remove them from the cabinet if they attended. .

Listen: World Economic Forum’s Adrian Monck speaks at The House:

The WEF hosts a conference in Davos, Switzerland every January where business leaders and politicians from around the world come together to exchange ideas. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper – who backed Poilievre for the Conservative leadership – attended the conference twice.

When Harper attended the conference in 2012, he delivered a speech describing the WEF as “an indispensable part of the global conversation between leaders in politics, business and civil society” and said that “in the face of “Persistent global economic instability, the opportunity the collection provides is now more valuable than ever.”

Monck said Poilievre’s decision to paint the WEF the way he did is puzzling.

“I don’t know how he differs in his analysis from, say, Stephen Harper,” he said. “We do not defend any particular political point of view. We try to remain impartial and neutral.

“We don’t advocate for large, small and medium governments. We deal with governments on all sides… so I don’t really understand where that particular analysis is coming from.”

In a statement released to CBC News, Poilievre said the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos “is a hypocritical gathering of billionaires, corporations and powerful politicians” who “teach working-class people to stop buying gasoline”.

“There is no apparent benefit to Canadians in attending. Canadian taxpayers should not have to pay to send government leaders to attend such a meeting,” Poilievre said in the statement. “Ministers should instead devote their full attention to serving ordinary people in Canadian communities.”

Danielle Smith, one of the main candidates to replace outgoing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as leader of the United Conservative Party, also criticized the WEF. She described it as a group of “undemocratic elites” who have been attacking Alberta for years and want Canadians to “own nothing and be happy.”