Today's Citizen
Elite firm to guard top-secret meeting in Kanata
VIPs set to arrive for Bilderberg meeting
Andrew Seymour and Andrew Mayeda, with a file from James Bagnall, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, June 08, 2006An elite private security firm has been hired to guard a top-secret meeting of some of the world's most powerful business and political leaders at a Kanata hotel starting today.
Members of the Bilderberg Group will descend on the upscale Brookstreet Hotel for the three-day meeting, several police sources confirmed yesterday.
At least four off-duty Ottawa police officers will be part of the security for the event.
The highly secretive session, expected to touch on global issues such as the direction of oil markets and potential military action against Iran, will run through Sunday.
Senior Ottawa police officers met yesterday afternoon to discuss preparations for the event, which police are concerned may draw the attention of anti-globalization protesters as well as present a potential security risk as a collection of the world's richest and most influential people gather under one roof.
When asked about police plans for the event, a police spokeswoman referred the Citizen to Alan Bell of Globe Risk Holdings.
Reached by phone, Mr. Bell -- who is listed as president of Globe Risk Holdings in Toronto and a former SAS paratrooper commando -- said he hadn't heard of the Bilderberg Group and denied that his firm has been hired to guard this week's conference.
"Never heard of that conference. What is it? What do they do?" said Mr. Bell before politely cutting the conservation short.
But according to the company's website, Globe Risk Holdings specializes in "strategic planning and counter-measures," recruits its consultants primarily from elite military counter-terrorist and special forces units, and has "undertaken consultancy and project work worldwide in areas of high risk" including Africa, Central and South America and Asia.
"The consultants at Globe Risk Holdings have proven backgrounds in military, special forces, law enforcement and government organizations with real life expertise in the areas of international security, mining, energy exploration security, counter-terrorism, kidnapping, specialized training, close protection, sabotage prevention, and military/law enforcement," reads the company website. "Knowledgeable and discreet, our consultants work together as a team to offer the quality of service necessary to meet all our clients' needs."
It's not known if any current heads of state are expected to attend the meeting.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been linked to the group after attending a Bilderberg conference in Versailles, France in 2003. A spokeswoman for the prime minister said yesterday he would not be attending the conference and that officials at the Prime Minister's Office weren't aware of the event.
The Bilderberg Group is named after the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954. Since then, the group has met annually in various locations throughout North America and Europe, including Toronto in 1996 and the Chateau Montebello in Quebec in 1983.
The list of attendees at last year's conference in Germany is believed to have included the queens of Spain and the Netherlands, former U.S. secretary of defence Henry Kissinger, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, as well as top executives and directors at such multinational corporations as BP PLC, Siemens AG, Deutsche Bank Group and DaimlerChrysler AG.
