Juno News - The WEF in Chrystia Freeland’s own words

A recent column I wrote for the National Post on the World Economic Forum has been in the news in Canada recently because its managing director, Adrian Monk, was interviewed by the CBC. Rather than challenging some of his assertions, Mr. Monk went along with the premise that accusations of the WEDF's agenda amount to misinformation and disinformation that these are just a bunch of friendly people hanging out in the Swiss Alps just having a good time and being a talking shop.

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome back to the show glad you could join me once again I hope you're all doing

00:00:23.240 well and enjoying the last few days of the warm weather wherever you are in the country you'll

00:00:29.240 have to excuse my voice a little bit and if I seem a little underpowered today I'm down with

00:00:33.920 COVID and dealing with a bit of sore throat and nasal congestion but apart from these mild symptoms

00:00:39.680 I'm doing I'm doing well so today it's going to be just me talking about a recent column I wrote

00:00:46.460 for the National Post and it was on the World Economic Forum some of you will know that the

00:00:52.820 World Economic Forum has been in the news in Canada recently because its managing director

00:00:58.460 Adrian Monk was interviewed by the CBC recently now rather than challenging some of his assertions

00:01:06.140 some of Mr. Monk's assertions the CBC surprise surprise went along with this premise that

00:01:12.320 accusations of the World Economic Forum's agenda amount to misinformation and disinformation

00:01:18.980 that these are just a bunch of friendly people hanging out in the Swiss Alps just having a good

00:01:26.080 time and being a talking shop now I find this to be more than a little disingenuous from Mr. Monk

00:01:33.140 some of you will know that I have been critical not just of the World Economic Forum but of the

00:01:39.980 involvement of Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland at the highest levels of the

00:01:46.880 organization serving on their advisory board their top policy making body something I exposed in the

00:01:54.320 pages of the National Post back in February 2021 now the World Economic Forum folks make it very clear

00:02:02.560 that they're out to change the world and that they have a radical left ideology that they're promoting

00:02:08.240 centered around uh the so-called great reset stakeholder capitalism putting climate change above

00:02:15.520 everything else uh and all of this all of this would fundamentally alter the nature of our society

00:02:21.520 economy and our capitalist-based market system and the people sitting around the campfire in Davos

00:02:28.220 aren't just ordinary people like you and me these are presidents prime ministers billionaires and other

00:02:33.760 assorted members of the rich and powerful of the world so what they talk about what they discuss

00:02:39.040 at Davos and other such elite um platforms uh definitely has consequences for the rest of us

00:02:47.040 now with Chrystia Freeland right there at the very top um of the World Economic Forum's advisory board you

00:02:55.280 literally have a member of Klaus Schwab's board sitting at the cabinet table here in Canada

00:03:02.080 the irony is that Chrystia Freeland who was once a prolific journalist uh was a was once a staunch

00:03:08.240 critic of the World Economic Forum and wrote an excellent book about it called the Plutocrats

00:03:13.520 the rise of the new global super rich and the fall of everyone else which was published in 2012.

00:03:19.680 I had the pleasure of rereading this book a couple of weeks ago and as I reread the book I came to the

00:03:26.560 conclusion that Chrystia Freeland really has done a 180 from being an outsider looking in and being

00:03:33.040 critical of the organization and of the super elites to as a cozy and insider as you can get

00:03:40.080 and what's doubly ironic is that many of the critiques uh of what happens in Davos and the power of the

00:03:46.640 super rich and the super elites who gather there that are now being dismissed as rants and raves of

00:03:52.560 far-right conspiracy theorists are actually things that Freeland herself pointed out in her book so

00:03:59.040 if today's critics are right-wing conspiracy theorists uh today's critics of the World Economic Forum are

00:04:04.560 right-wing conspiracy theorists then where exactly does that leave Freeland uh now back to Mr. Monk uh the

00:04:11.920 managing director of the World Economic Forum his claim is that Davos is just an innocuous talking shop

00:04:17.760 but here's a telling passage from the plutocrats the vampire squid theory of the super elite is

00:04:23.200 entertaining and emotionally satisfying it can be fun to imagine the super elites who went to wall

00:04:29.040 street and their harvard classmates who became economics professors and those who became u.s senators

00:04:34.960 participating in a grand conspiracy hatched ideally at the porcelian club to rip off the middle class 0.85

00:04:42.400 but the impact of these networks is much less cynical and much more subtle though not necessarily of less

00:04:50.880 consequence so basically what Freeland is saying here is and something i describe in my column as well

00:04:59.280 is that when people spend a lot of time together in an environment where work and socializing

00:05:07.040 intermingle whether it is in a university fraternity at Davos every year or at other venues where power

00:05:14.880 elites routinely come together a shared mindset develops of what needs to be done whether it's to

00:05:22.960 combat inequality deal with climate change or how do you handle a pandemic like COVID-19 and it's also

00:05:32.240 well known that there's a revolving door between the top echelons of government the private sector

00:05:37.760 and academia none of this is hard to understand think about it when like-minded people get together

00:05:44.320 they reinforce each other's beliefs and meeting frequently and often is key to that so whether

00:05:51.360 it's a bunch of activists getting together to talk about their cause or a bunch of sports fans getting

00:05:57.360 together it's basically normal human psychology that people in this kind of situation will tend to

00:06:04.400 share assumptions beliefs views and even ideologies another myth that Freeland nicely dispels in my

00:06:11.120 opinion is the idea that wealthy and powerful people whom she calls plutocrats should be assumed to be

00:06:18.640 batting for free markets and individual liberty but here is her very on-point observation again

00:06:27.200 this is a quote from the book from Freeland's book on the plutocrats quote but the bigger issue of

00:06:33.600 the relationship between plutocrats and the state can't be reduced to business batting for smaller

00:06:39.440 government often a big intrusive state is the plutocrat's best friend true of state capitalist regimes

00:06:46.480 like china and russia and of industries like the defense business that live on state largesse or of

00:06:53.200 companies like the u.s steel industry under george w bush that have lobbied for and one protectionist

00:06:59.520 protectionist legislation so basically in other words there's often an unholy nexus between big

00:07:06.640 business and big government uh government restricts competition sets the rules of the game that often end

00:07:12.800 up favoring big established businesses uh just look at canada's telecom industry our cell phone providers

00:07:19.680 for example um these guys can turn around and rip us off and big business are also big donors to

00:07:26.160 political parties um and so that's how they're completely intertwined and oftentimes the loser is

00:07:32.960 average folks like you and i uh who don't necessarily have a voice at the table whether it's in davos

00:07:39.280 or at a thousand dollar plate uh fundraiser or at a fancy retreat at a resort by an investment bank or

00:07:46.320 management consultancy again this is not a conspiracy theory and what right-wing critics of the world

00:07:53.520 economic forum are saying today is an extension of what critics like christia freeland was saying

00:08:00.160 uh a decade ago so my question for christia freeland uh if i ever had the chance to ask her is what would

00:08:07.920 the christia freeland of 2012 who wrote the plutocrats think about the freeland of 2022 who sits at the

00:08:14.800 high table with the plutocrats in davos and that's a question we can all ask ourselves especially at a

00:08:22.000 time when there's an agenda to stifle legitimate criticism of outfits like the world economic forum

00:08:28.720 by claiming that it's all a far-right conspiracy theory and it amounts to misinformation and disinformation

00:08:35.840 i guess what that means is our political elites and their section and their friends in large sections of

00:08:42.480 the legacy media seem to believe that criticism from the left is legitimate and sincere but criticism

00:08:50.320 on the right is a crazy conspiracy theory but that's how it seems to roll in canada right now

00:08:57.520 anyway on that note i want to thank you for tuning in and if you want to read my column um the piece

00:09:03.280 that i refer to in this podcast please uh check it out at the national post it's called uh the best

00:09:09.200 critique of the world economic forum came from christia freeland herself see you next week

Juno News - September 15, 2022

The WEF in Chrystia Freeland’s own words

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