Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland participated in an undisclosed session on the financing of Ukraine during her visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos earlier this year, an official document shows.
The information was revealed in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled by the government on March 29 in response to an order paper from Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis.
The government document says the panel was about “the war in Ukraine and paths for private sector capital to offer support.”
Participants included U.S. climate czar John Kerry, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended remotely.
Three financiers also took part: Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock; Bill Ford, chairman and CEO of General Atlantic; and David Rubenstein, co-chairman of the Carlyle Group.
Fink, who manages the firm holding the most assets on the planet, sits on the WEF board of trustees along with Freeland.
The Epoch Times contacted the Ministry of Finance to find out why the panel was not publicized and what was discussed, but didn’t receive a response by publication time.
Government Tight-Lipped
The federal government was tight-lipped about its participation at the WEF meeting in Switzerland in January. At the time, several departments didn’t respond to Epoch Times questions about the size of the Canadian delegation and the government’s objectives.The Ministry of Finance and Global Affairs Canada (GAC), which both sent ministers, have now answered some of those questions.
Freeland and International Trade Minister Mary Ng were each accompanied by two staff, and two Canadian diplomats stationed in Geneva also participated.
Freeland’s public itineraries were sparse on information, only mentioning meetings with unspecified “business leaders and other participants.”
The Inquiry of Ministry did not provide many additional details, only mentioning meetings with the U.S. congressional delegation, which included senators Chris Coons and Joe Manchin, with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde.
The document says Freeland had meetings with a variety of business leaders and foreign government leaders, but they were not identified.
What her department provided in the Inquiry of Ministry is less detailed than what GAC provided for Minister Ng.
GAC provided a list of meetings with, in some cases, brief agendas and summaries, but the names of non-Canadian participants were mostly withheld citing privacy.
Lewis had asked to be provided with details of any agreements signed during the WEF meetings.
“The WEF public session and side meetings related to the WTO [World Trade Organization] were general discussions, and did not entail any formal agreements,” says the document.
“The bilateral engagements were closed meetings and as such, no information is available regarding their content.”
Partnerships and Funding
To date, the Trudeau government has entered into at least two partnerships with the WEF.Most of the information on the government’s involvement with the WEF has been unearthed through queries made by Lewis.