Front Burner - Why conspiracies surround the World Economic Forum

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

The World Economic Forum, and its annual summit for the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland, have long been targeted by criticism from the left. But since the start of the pandemic, the forum has become a huge concern for many people on the right, including those who view the WEF as shadowy puppet masters at the centre of a complex web of conspiracy theories. Today, journalist Justin Ling — host of the CBC podcasts The Flame Throwers and The Village — joins us to unpack many of those conspiracy theories, and examine the potential consequences of mainstream Canadian politicians amplifying suspicions about the organization.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Music Almost every year, demonstrations are held in Davos, Switzerland, and sometimes around the world, to protest the World Economic Forum. Actually, the latest ones happened just the other week. Music

The World Economic Forum is an annual summit of political leaders, civil society organizations, and billionaire business people. And they get together to talk about solving problems like climate change and world hunger. For decades, the demonstrators that have marched against the forum have typically been from the left, people who criticize the elite gathering as this schmooze fest that exists to protect the interests of the rich, to uphold the capitalist system, and to give bankers and business owners access to political leaders. Remember that the people in this place, it's all about business. It's all about profit. Then it means more people are going to continue suffering with droughts and cyclones and floods.

So some might consider it a bit ironic that in the past couple of years, the World Economic Forum has become a huge concern for many people on the right. There's a range of critiques here. There are politicians like Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Pierre Palliev, who accuses the forum of having a socialist agenda that's trying to re-engineer society after the pandemic. Mr. Carney, you're right, he's part of the World Economic Forum that the finance minister joins, which says that in 2030, only nine years from now, you will own nothing and you will love it. That is the agenda of these people. But there's also a complex web of conspiracy theories that view WEF as shadowy puppet masters

overseeing a grand global plot involving 5G, vaccines, microchips, and pretty much every other conspiracy buzzword you've probably heard since the start of the pandemic. Today, we'll unpack the World Economic Forum. I'm joined by journalist Justin Ling. He's the host of the CBC podcast, The Flamethrowers in the Village. And he's been reporting on this for the Toronto Star and elsewhere. And he recently started a newsletter about conspiracies. It's called Bug-Eyed and Shameless, and you can find it on Substack. Hey, Justin, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks for having me.

So let's start here by just talking about the World Economic Forum and what it actually is. So in 1971, this German engineer, an economist named Klaus Schwab, decided to make this organization. And what does the forum do now? Oh, well, I mean, the forum, like many good think tanks, involves a lot of powerful people getting together in the same room to come up with the same kind of solutions year in and year out. And fundamentally, the form is about figuring out how liberalism can sort of save capitalism, and in some cases, vice versa. So they host their annual forum in Davos, Switzerland every year, and they invite, you know, titans of industry, politicians, philanthropists, activists, NGOs, you name it. And it's supposed to be a spot where people can sort of

swap ideas on how to, you know, move to a green economy has recently been a big topic. You know, how capitalism can be a little more fair, how we can push back against a rise in liberalism. The World Economic Forum over the years has, you know, fretted about the situation in Israel-Palestine. It has helped broker, you know, peace relations between Greece and Turkey when it looked like they were on the edge of conflict. So it's not probably the most important think tank in the world, but it's relatively significant. And as I was saying in the intro, the World Economic Forum has been the target of protests on the left since the early 2000s, so for a while now. But explain to me, how did it go from there to being at the center of like all of these right wing conspiracies?

Yeah. Yeah. So the forum has long been hated by the left because just like I said, it is an can meet with each other and with politicians to figure out how to deal with some of the crises in confidence that have faced capitalism in recent decades, to try to figure out how to sell people on the idea that the free market is still the way to go. And naturally, if you're a big believer in a social market or socialism outright, the form is not your kind of people. But since the start of the pandemic, it has been the right that has focused on the form as being this sort of enabler of the new world order,

of being an organization that is hell-bent on destroying capitalism, not preserving it, and instead installing a Marxist government, perhaps even a one-world global Marxist government. You know, this is premeditated and preplanned. The World Economic Forum is in Canada and is running our country and running the Great Reset. And it is being played out. The script is being played out every single day in this country. They believe the form has either taken advantage of the pandemic for nefarious ends

or perhaps it even created the pandemic itself. All these global organizations and those that are sort of even above them, they see themselves as, this is how we can rule the world. This is how we can control societies. This is how we can control humanity. So let's introduce something called COVID. They believe that the form has a diabolical plot in place that it is slowly enacting to enable total digital surveillance,

to force everyone in the world onto the same digital ID, to implement their own digital currency, to eliminate meat and have people eating bugs. meat and have people eating bugs. They believe the form is about to basically pull the rug out from the world and supersede local governments and install dictatorship by fiat from Europe. All this stuff is based in papers or editorials or research things that the form has written, and it's been misrepresented and misconstrued to suggest the forum is going to impose all of this on us, whether we want it or not. Is everyone on the right is criticizing the World Economic Forum? Are they buying into all of these conspiracy theories that you're talking about here? Like eating bugs instead of meat. And I know like 5G microchipping stuff is a big part of this.

Or are people kind of cherry picking? It's a bit of both. So, you know, listen, how did this get started? Literally the first month of the pandemic, when we're all stuck indoors trying to figure out what all this means, it's when the forum conspiracy theory really starts percolating up. And it is percolating up from people who believe that COVID-19 was a bioweapon. It is being pushed by people ones who were saying that the government is lying to you about treatment and all you need is hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and zinc and you'll be okay, right? The people who are pushing this are not reasonable or thoughtful. They are

conspiracy theorists. Let's be really blunt about that. As it's become bigger, yes, there are people who just see it as a global body that they don't trust and they don't like, much like people on the right don't like the United Nations. I don't know that they're reasonable, but you're right. Not everybody who is sort of fearful or distrustful of the world economic form believes that they, for example, created the pandemic. At the heart of this is this idea that Klaus Schwab had about what he called the Great Reset. And can you just explain to me what that is and how it fits into this? Yeah, so I think it's fair to say that the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab have, I wouldn't say they're asking for it by any measure.

But they have this sort of futurist streak to them. And they talk in this big, grandiose language about how to fix civilization. Now is the historical moment, the time, not only to fight severe virus, but to shape the system. And sometimes I think if you're distrustful of kind of internationalist institutions, I think a lot of this sounds really terrifying. But Klaus Schwab wrote a book called The Great Reset. It's not a claim, it's not a term he invented, it's actually borrowed from an

economist. But the book is all about sort of what happens after the pandemic. It was written kind of very early on in 2020. And the idea is that in human history, at least in modern history, there are sort of these boom and bust cycles, right? Sometimes we'll have a huge bust that leads us into famine, into war, into disparity. And coming out of it, humanity finds a way of reinventing itself, recreating its systems, and improving society in leaps and bounds, breaking through on technological innovation, finding new ways to organize government, country, states in a way that is beneficial to at least most people. He points to the after the Great Depression, the point after the 2008 financial collapse. And the point of the book,

I don't think it's a very good book, to be honest, but the point of the book is to say, how do we want to reorganize our society when we get out of this? And there make some kind of clear observations, you know, such as, you know, we need to figure out what what it looks like to ramp up green energy supply very, very quickly. We need to do we need to look at what it will take to sort of decrease the increasing income disparity between rich and poor and things like that you know pretty pretty you know bog standard liberal talking points at this point um and it's an it's an interesting book because it's been so wildly misrepresented i mean there are people out there who say that this book is the blueprint for a global surveillance, digital surveillance regime. Klaus and the World Economic Forum want a worldwide digital ID system that determines

your access to goods and services. That will bring us all under the sort of watchful eye of Klaus Schwab. But in fact, you read the book and it's literally the opposite. So, so much of this conspiracy theory just rests on wildly misinterpreting or deliberately mischaracterizing what this organization stands for. And then, what's worse, alleging that this organization has some sort of absolute power that it just absolutely does not. The suggestion that it runs government, that it owns politicians, that it controls how the economy operates, that it's part of this cabal, this secret society of wealthy people who will really determine how the world works. But just to be fair here, like there are lots of criticisms here that aren't necessarily conspiratorial. There are lots of criticisms here that aren't necessarily conspiratorial, but just like that a lot of people on the left certainly would say are valid. You know, that there are a bunch of powerful people and powerful politicians and powerful

business people who are meeting and have like unprecedented access to one another. who are meeting and have like unprecedented access to one another. And basically, like, like, this is access that regular people don't have to to power. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, you know, I couldn't agree more. And in fact, I have probably a very long list of criticisms I can make about the World Economic Forum. And, you know, I don't think it's actually a particularly helpful or useful organization. and I don't think the left has a monopoly on criticizing them either. I think some of the criticisms from the right are totally valid. Where the problem comes from is in extrapolating their desires or their wistful thinking into

something powerful and nefarious and dangerous and imminently threatening to our safety and our freedom. And, you know, I keep saying this has happened before. You go back to the 1990s and there was this pervasive idea that there was a secret society in Europe, you know, where rich and powerful people from politics and industry get together and they plot the new world order and total surveillance and the dissolution of sovereign governments and so on and so forth. But back then it wasn't the World Economic Forum. It was the Trilateral Commission, basically a very similar organization designed to kind of bring capitalists and politicians together. And the allegation that the Trilateral Commission was this imminent threat to Western society drove a right-wing extremist movement through the 90s. You know, the militia movement was a huge threat.

It directly contributed to the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest domestic terror attack in American history. So these things have consequences. Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples.

Let's talk about the ubiquity of the WEF as a conspiracy theory in Canada. So to get an idea about that, I know that you and I were both in Ottawa covering the Freedom Convoy protests. And for sure, for me talking to people, the WEF came up a few times, not with everyone, but certainly with some. And then I'm sure you'll remember that sort of anti-vax conspiracy theory mood board outside Parliament. And there were lots of references to it there, right? And so how often did you hear people bring up the World Economic Forum at the convoy protests in Ottawa? I would go so far as to say it is the single most frequent thing I heard from the convoy protesters.

It was on signs. It was painted on trucks. It was posted to the participants' Facebook pages and Twitter pages, it was all over Telegram it was littered through the speeches I heard from the live streams of folks who were at the occupation I spent a lot of time not just covering the occupation and the convoy

but also covering conspiracy movements in the US, Canada, abroad following many of the influencers watching occupation of the convoy, but also covering conspiracy movements in the U.S., Canada, abroad, following many of the influencers, watching many of the live streams, the World Economic Forum has become the meta-theory that sort of explains everything. For a time, George Soros was the big boogeyman in Europe. He's been totally supplanted by Klaus Schwab. Klaus Schwab is the guy that everyone talks about. He has become the centerpiece of this conspiracy theory.

Yeah. And I'll just mention this fact because I think listeners might find it interesting. The Federal Ethics Commissioner's annual report came out recently. And among other things, it says that the office received more than 1000 requests in February and March to investigate MPs participation in the World Economic Forum. And actually, I actually have spoken to some MPs and senators who have told me that their inboxes are just getting flooded with stuff about the World Economic Forum. In particular, there's a bill in the Senate to calling on the government to study a guaranteed minimum income or a basic living income,

which is something that's been talked about in this country for quite some time. It has been promoted by, you know, local groups here. But the idea has really permeated this movement that the basic income pilot is a plot by Klaus Schwab to basically destroy the economy, get people off their jobs, onto government income. And so I know that senators who have sponsored the bill or who have debated it have had their inboxes, thousands and thousands of emails, phone calls, physical letters, people stopping them in the street. This has become incredibly motivating for a ton of people, and our politicians are absolutely feeling it. Earlier, you talked about dangerous outcomes here.

And I also want to talk to you about how this has been invoked in relation to both the mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo last month and the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. And can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, like I said, from basically the start of the pandemic, this has really been a through line through so many conspiratorial movements. Corey Herron, who drove his truck to the front gates of Rideau Hall with a cab full of weapons and a letter accusing the prime minister of wantingau Hall with a cab full of weapons and a letter accusing the Prime Minister of wanting to install a Marxist government. He was sharing memes that were kind of obliquely about the World Economic Forum in the weeks

before he drove to Ottawa. The alleged mass shooter in Buffalo published a horribly racist screed in the hours before his attack. And inside that document is an allegation that Klaus Schwab is part of a small committee of Jewish people who are in fact running the world and who are presiding over this great replacement of white, of ethnic white people by non-white folks. ethnic white people by non-white folks. The World Economic Forum has been now blamed for orchestrating the mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas.

The allegation is that Klaus Schwab has enabled these shootings in order to facilitate the seizure of weapons from law-abiding gun owners in the U.S. and Canada so as to enable this invasion, essentially. Okay, so look, we've been talking a lot about how these conspiracy theories have been embraced by groups who are on the fringe, but the World Economic Forum is also being talked about

more and more by mainstream people, including politicians and including conservative politicians in Canada. And what are they saying? The mainstream politicians that are platforming this conspiracy theory are being quite careful. They are talking in very sort of general terms, existential terms, about the sort of general threat to our democracy that the form presents, you know, how the form is against our national interests. You've seen Pierre Polyev say this repeatedly. Work for Canada. Work for Canada. If you want to go to Davos to that conference, make it a one-way ticket. But you can't be part of our government and working for a policy agenda that is against the interests of our people. He has been utilizing the World Economic Forum to speak to this sort of conspiracy-minded right-wing fringe for quite some time.

He started a petition in 2020, you know, calling on Canadians to stop the Great Reset. He's been collecting signatures and emails and contact information of people who are fearful of the World Economic Forum for two years now. And now he's using that list to, you know, campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Roman Baber, who's also running, has appeared quite recently at a protest in Victoria alongside a woman who sued the federal government, alleging that they were conspiring with the World Economic Forum to microchip us all with 5G-enabled microchips under the guise of vaccines.

enabled microchips under the guise of vaccines. Leslyn Lewis has repeatedly played footsie with these conspiracy theories, alleging the World Economic Forum is planning on a one-world national digital ID. Derek Sloan ran an ad in Ontario. Former member of parliament now runs his own party in Ontario. He ran an ad during the provincial election spreading some absolutely outlandish conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum. Doug Ford promised that his government would be for the people. He failed to mention that those people are not you and me, but globalist elites that promote the great reset in digital ID.

So these politicians know exactly what they're doing. They're not speaking to reasonable concerns about this organization. They are very well aware of how many people are motivated, extremely motivated, by this conspiracy theory. Pierre Polyev does not think that Klaus Schwab is a threat to our democracy. But he knows that there are enough people out there who believe that, that he can sign them up as members, he can get donations from them, he can bring them out to a rally, and he can ride that wave of paranoia and delusion into power. being purposefully naive. You know, I think the level of cynicism that goes behind someone like Pierre Pauliev continuing to play up this conspiracy theory, knowing full well who's taking advantage of it, who's benefiting from it to drive this extremism, I think it's unbelievably cynical, and I think it's unbelievably dangerous. Okay, well, just to push back on you there, you know, he's not talking about 5G microchipping or any of this, right? Like, he's mainly talking about what he calls the WEF's socialist agenda.

And he's also leaned into this idea of a great reset and like elite manipulation as well. And I guess, is it actually out of touch with what people are concerned about? Like, is it not a legitimate concern that Canadian politicians constantly going to this conference being subjected to all of these rich and powerful people lobbying their ideas would influence their policies and the ways they think about big, important issues. And like, is it not okay to take umbrage with that? It's absolutely okay. But we can't be naive to the context, right? You know, he's not talking

about other international fora. He's not talking about other global conferences. He's not talking, for example, about the International Democratic Union He's not talking, for example, about the International Democratic Union, the IDU, which is a conservative think tank. Many of his friends and many major conservative members go to quite frequently, which is fine, frankly. He's not talking about the other organizations, the other think tanks, the other international fora, where elites and capitalists and politicians get together and, you know, put their heads together. He's only talking about this one, right? And why? Well, it's clearly because this one has become the subject of a conspiracy movement that has motivated a ton of people, right? And what's more,

you know, I didn't hear Pierre Polyev say anything when Stephen Harper got on stage for a keynote address alongside Klaus Schwab. You know, one of Pierre Polyev's co-chairs, John Baird, appeared multiple times at the Davos summit. The first time conservative politicians started talking about the World Economic forum was after this conspiracy theory percolated and clearly drove a ton of people into worrying about it. So if you want to voice legitimate concerns or criticize the beliefs that are being presented at the forum, absolutely, go for it. But it's very clear, I think to me, to a ton of people who follow this, that this is a direct effort to wink and nudge at the conspiracy theorists who spread this misinformation.

Okay. Justin, thank you very much for this. Thanks for having me. All right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.