Christopher Nardi -National Post
6/1/2022
OTTAWA – The federal ethics commissioner’s office was flooded with over 1,000 emails, calls, letters and even faxes this winter from people asking it to investigate a conspiracy theory claiming some parliamentarians and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland are beholden to the World Economic Forum.
OTTAWA – The federal ethics commissioner’s office was flooded with over 1,000 emails, calls, letters and even faxes this winter from people asking it to investigate a conspiracy theory claiming some parliamentarians and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland are beholden to the World Economic Forum.
Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab arrives on stage during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on May 25, 2022. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)
“In February and March 2022, the Office received over 1,000 requests from members of the public asking the Commissioner to investigate the participation of Members and ministers in the World Economic Forum,” says a short line in the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner’s (CIEC) latest annual report published Monday.
The document notes that the requests “did not provide sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation.”
But the CIEC is just the latest government institution to see its email and phone lines flooded with people driven by “misinformation” or conspiracy theories demanding impossible action such as dissolving government or removing members of Parliament from their posts.
For example, the National Post revealed in February that “Freedom convoy” supporters convinced that the Governor General could dissolve Parliament on a whim flooded Rideau Hall with calls to register a “non-confidence” vote towards the prime minister.
That prompted Rideau Hall to later put out a statement saying that the campaign was “misinformation” and that the Governor General could do no such thing.
CIEC director of communications Melanie Rushworth said communications, mostly by email but sometimes by call, letter and even fax, began arriving at the office at the end of February and poured in until early March.
It quickly became evident to her staff that this was a coordinated campaign, as all the messages seemed taken from the same template accusing Freeland and other MPs of being under the shadowy influence of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF is best known for its annual meeting in the ritzy Swiss town of Davos, where politicians, businesspeople and other global elites meet behind closed doors to discuss world affairs.
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During early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF and its founder Klaus Schwab became the focus of an increasingly mainstream conspiracy theory that claims they are at the centre of efforts to restructure society into a “new world order” through a project called “The Great Reset”.
The conspiracy theory claims that WEF’s influence extends to the Canadian government and that it controls the Trudeau Liberal government — and even the prime minister directly.
Recent discourse from politicians like Maxime Bernier or Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre — who recently promised that if he is elected prime minister he would not permit his ministers to attend a WEF meeting — is feeding the theory, said disinformation expert Carmen Celestini, who teaches a course on conspiracy theories at the University of Waterloo.
In a copy of the messages provided to National Post, writers asked the CIEC to investigate MPs who have ties to “World Economic Forum and the Young Global Leaders,” because they are “promoting foreign interference in our government.”
These organizations, they claim, aim to “intentionally dismantle the existing societal structure and Bill of Rights in Canada and install a foreign-controlled digital banking system.”
The message then claims that Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) concluded in a 2019 report that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland are “under the influence and control” of foreign states. (The NSICOP report did not make that claim, except to say that “some” elected and appointed government officials are “wittingly or unwittingly subject to foreign interference activities.”)
The missive ends by stating that MPs who are representing a “private foreign agenda” should be removed from office.
Rushworth said it was the first time since she started working for the CIEC three years ago that she’s had to deal with such a coordinated campaign. The WEF-related correspondences represented roughly one third of the 3,500 public and media communications received in 2021-2022.
“We basically wrote back to all of the people that had emailed us with general information about what it is that the commissioner does, and that without specific, clear information, we don’t know what they’re asking us to look at,” she said.
Celestini says there will only be more of these kinds of campaigns if authorities and governments across the world don’t seriously begin to address the rampant spread of disinformation and misinformation online.
“It’s something we should absolutely be concerned about, because what we see with conspiracy theories is a lot of xenophobia, we see a lot of racism, we see a lot of classism that’s happening,” Celestini said.
“So, if we don’t actually confront these ideas, and build trust in our institutions again, it can actually have very significant effects in people joining white nationalist groups or very right-wing extremist groups.”
“In February and March 2022, the Office received over 1,000 requests from members of the public asking the Commissioner to investigate the participation of Members and ministers in the World Economic Forum,” says a short line in the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner’s (CIEC) latest annual report published Monday.
The document notes that the requests “did not provide sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation.”
But the CIEC is just the latest government institution to see its email and phone lines flooded with people driven by “misinformation” or conspiracy theories demanding impossible action such as dissolving government or removing members of Parliament from their posts.
For example, the National Post revealed in February that “Freedom convoy” supporters convinced that the Governor General could dissolve Parliament on a whim flooded Rideau Hall with calls to register a “non-confidence” vote towards the prime minister.
That prompted Rideau Hall to later put out a statement saying that the campaign was “misinformation” and that the Governor General could do no such thing.
CIEC director of communications Melanie Rushworth said communications, mostly by email but sometimes by call, letter and even fax, began arriving at the office at the end of February and poured in until early March.
It quickly became evident to her staff that this was a coordinated campaign, as all the messages seemed taken from the same template accusing Freeland and other MPs of being under the shadowy influence of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF is best known for its annual meeting in the ritzy Swiss town of Davos, where politicians, businesspeople and other global elites meet behind closed doors to discuss world affairs.
During early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF and its founder Klaus Schwab became the focus of an increasingly mainstream conspiracy theory that claims they are at the centre of efforts to restructure society into a “new world order” through a project called “The Great Reset”.
The conspiracy theory claims that WEF’s influence extends to the Canadian government and that it controls the Trudeau Liberal government — and even the prime minister directly.
Recent discourse from politicians like Maxime Bernier or Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre — who recently promised that if he is elected prime minister he would not permit his ministers to attend a WEF meeting — is feeding the theory, said disinformation expert Carmen Celestini, who teaches a course on conspiracy theories at the University of Waterloo.
AND I WILL CUT OFF MY NOSE TO SPITE MY FACE
“By fostering that discussion, saying, ‘Well, we won’t do that,’ you’re giving validation and credence to this idea of the great reset,” she said.In a copy of the messages provided to National Post, writers asked the CIEC to investigate MPs who have ties to “World Economic Forum and the Young Global Leaders,” because they are “promoting foreign interference in our government.”
These organizations, they claim, aim to “intentionally dismantle the existing societal structure and Bill of Rights in Canada and install a foreign-controlled digital banking system.”
The message then claims that Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) concluded in a 2019 report that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland are “under the influence and control” of foreign states. (The NSICOP report did not make that claim, except to say that “some” elected and appointed government officials are “wittingly or unwittingly subject to foreign interference activities.”)
The missive ends by stating that MPs who are representing a “private foreign agenda” should be removed from office.
Rushworth said it was the first time since she started working for the CIEC three years ago that she’s had to deal with such a coordinated campaign. The WEF-related correspondences represented roughly one third of the 3,500 public and media communications received in 2021-2022.
“We basically wrote back to all of the people that had emailed us with general information about what it is that the commissioner does, and that without specific, clear information, we don’t know what they’re asking us to look at,” she said.
Celestini says there will only be more of these kinds of campaigns if authorities and governments across the world don’t seriously begin to address the rampant spread of disinformation and misinformation online.
“It’s something we should absolutely be concerned about, because what we see with conspiracy theories is a lot of xenophobia, we see a lot of racism, we see a lot of classism that’s happening,” Celestini said.
“So, if we don’t actually confront these ideas, and build trust in our institutions again, it can actually have very significant effects in people joining white nationalist groups or very right-wing extremist groups.”
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