Mining, Barrick Gold, Peter Munk and Their Influence on Canadian Politics

Canadian Council of Chief Executives head John Manley, former prime minister
and current Barrick international advisory board chair Brian Mulroney, Barrick
chairman Peter Munk, and former foreign minister and current Barrick
international advisory board member John Baird

Nigel Wright has been much in the news for the $90,172 cheque he signed over to Mike Duffy. Much less attention has been devoted to the scandalous implications of the $9 million payment from former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird to Peter Munk’s School at the University of Toronto. The anatomy of both deals sheds light on the abundant conflicts of interest linking the Barrick Gold Company with Conservative Party governments led by Brian Mulroney and now Stephen Harper.

After terminating his tenure as the most undiplomatic Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada’s history, John Baird has been extended a place on Barrick Gold Corporation’s International Advisory Board. Its founding Chair was former US President George H.W. Bush. The international panel’s current Chair is former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. A close student of the relationship between Bush Sr. and Mulroney, in 1997 Anton Chaitkin came up with the phrase “Barrick’s Barracudas.” Baird is a recent recruit among this school of fishy predators inhabiting those murky zones of lucrative interaction between business and politics. This pattern goes back at least to 1984 when Adnan Khashoggi visited Ontario’s capital to establish a Toronto headquarters for the Barrick complex of companies.

In the period when he was laying out the political, legal and economic groundwork for what would become Barrick Gold, the flamboyant playboy Khashoggi was reputed to be one of the world’s richest men. This CIA asset and arms merchant also served as a front man for a group of Saudi Arabian investors that included Kamal Adham, the oil-rich country’s head of intelligence operations. This strategic link to Saudi wealth was crucial in the financial life of western capitals during an era when much depended on Saudi Arabia’s backing for the shift of the US dollar from a gold-backed to an oil-based currency.

Barrick Gold’s connection through Peter Munk to Canada’s Bronfman family dynasty formed a vital dimension of the Israeli-Saudi axis, an important factor in maintaining the Anglo-American empire. Edgar Bronfman’s activities, as the influential head of the World Jewish Congress between 1979 and 2007, provide us with a glimpse into the politico-economic juggernaut that included the Barrick complex of companies.  (more...)

Mining, Barrick Gold, Peter Munk and Their Influence on Canadian Politics

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