Canadian Global Affairs Institute

Canadian Global Affairs Institute   (Think tank)
Formation	2000
Headquarters	Calgary, Alberta, Ottawa, Ontario
Sponsored by	General Dynamics, Lockheed, NATO, Raytheon
Membership	•  Ian Brodie •  Jean Charest •  Laura Dawson •  Richard Fadden •  Robert Fowler •  Dan Hays •  Marie-Lucie Morin •  John Manley •  Bob Rae •  Christopher Waddell •  Robert Wright (diplomat) •  David Bercuson •  Jean-Christophe Boucher •  Brett Boudreau •  Brian Bow •  David Carment •  Joseph Caron •  Andrea Charron •  Howard Coombs •  Barry Cooper •  Daryl Copeland •  Jocelyn Coulon •  D. Michael Day •  Ferry de Kerckhove •  Paul Durand •  Ross Fetterly •  Patricia Fortier •  Julian Lindley-French •  Frédérick Gagnon •  Sarah Goldfeder •  Andrew Griffith •  Marius Grinius •  Robert Hage •  Rolf Holmboe •  Rob Huebert •  Peter Jones •  Thomas Juneau •  Tom Keenan •  Adam Lajeunesse •  Randolph Mank •  Eric Miller •  Robert Muggah •  David Perry •  Vanja Petricevic •  George Petrolekas •  Joël Plouffe •  Andrew Rasiulis •  Tom Ring •  Colin Robertson •  Lindsay L. Rodman •  Stephen Saideman •  Darren Schemmer •  Hugh Segal •  Elinor Sloan •  Gary Soroka •  Hugh Stephens •  Alan Stephenson •  Stéfanie von Hlatky •  Charity Weeden

The Canadian Global Affairs Institute (Global Affairs) is a Canadian miltary/arms industry funded think tank that since its founding in 2000 seems to have a steadily increasing influence over Canadian society and media.

Official Narrative

An independent research institute based in Calgary with offices in Ottawa, incorporated as a charitable organization in 2000, the institute pursues new ideas to focus the national debate and understanding of Canada's international policies with the ultimate aim of ensuring a more globally engaged Canada. Global Affairs believes that doing so enhances Canadian security and prosperity. Global Affairs is dedicated to educating Canadians, and particularly those who have leadership roles in shaping Canadian foreign policy, about the importance of Canada being proactive in world affairs with tangible diplomatic, military and aid assets.

Positions

CGAI has called for Ottawa to set up a foreign spy service, similar to the CIA.. At the height of the war in Afghanistan they commissioned a survey claiming most “Canadians are willing to send troops into danger even if it leads to deaths and injuries as long as they believe in the military’s goals.”

The Institute supported Canada's $15-billion combat-vehicle sale to Saudi Arabia at a time of the Saudi invasion and siege of Yemen, at the same time as the think tank took money from defense contractor General Dynamics – the parent of the arms maker in the export contract. At least four of the General Dynamics-funded institute's "fellows" wrote columns justifying the sale, including an opinion David Perry published in The Globe and Mail Report on Business titled "Without foreign sales, Canada's defence industry would not survive."

Military Journalism Course

The Military Journalism Course was started in 2002 as a nine-day course which introduces university students to military journalism and the Canadian Armed Forces. The course is run in partnership with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary and includes a combination of media-military theory in a classroom setting, coupled with field visits to Armed Forces regular and reserve units. The stated goal of the program is to enhance the military education of future Canadian journalists who will report on Canadian military activities domestically and abroad.

This description obscures the political objective of the course. In an article titled “A student’s look inside the military journalism course” Lola Fakinlede wrote: “Between the excitement of shooting guns, driving in tanks, eating pre-packed lunches, investigating the insides of coyotes and leopards — armoured vehicles not animals — and visiting the messes, we were learning how the military operates. … Being able to see the human faces behind the uniform, being able to talk to them like regular people, being able to see them start losing the suspicion in their eyes and really start talking candidly to me — that was incredible.”

Captain David Williams wrote in 2010:

the intent of this annual visit has always been to foster a familiarity and mutual understanding between the CF and the future media, two entities which require a symbiotic relationship in order to function.

In detailing an attack against colleague Lee Berthiaume, Ottawa Citizen military reporter David Pugliese pointed out that it’s “not uncommon for the site to launch personal attacks on journalists covering defence issues. It seems some CDFAI [CGAI’s predecessor] ‘fellows’ don’t like journalists who ask the government or the Department of National Defence too many probing questions. … Last year I had one of the CDFAI ‘fellows’ write one of the editors at the Citizen to complain about my lack of professionalism on a particular issue. … the smear attempt was all done behind my back but I found out about it. That little stunt backfired big time when I showed the Citizen editor that the CDFAI ‘fellow’ had fabricated his claims about me.”

Ross Munro Media Award

The Ross Munro Media Award was initiated, in 2002, by the Conference of Defence Associations, in concert with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. Its purpose is to recognize, annually, one Canadian journalist who has made a significant and outstanding contribution to the understanding, by the general public, of Canada's defence and security issues. The political objective of the award is to reinforce the militarist culture among reporters who cover the subject.

Sponsors

Sponsors include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, the Department of National Defence and NATO.

People

Professor Julian Lindley-French is a UK academic with connections to both the UK Deep state and NATO. He was a senior fellow at the Institute for Statecraft.

 

Known members

5 of the 59 of the members already have pages here:

Member	Description
Ian Brodie	Attended the 2008 Bilderberg as Chief of Staff to the Canadian Prime Minister
Joseph Caron	Canadian diplomat who attended 1983 Bilderberg when working in private sector assignments.
Robert Fowler	Canada's longest-serving Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN
Julian Lindley-French	UK Deep state operative. Senior fellow at the Institute for Statecraft and directed their "Strategic Partnerships" project. Chatham House
Robert Wright (diplomat)	Brother of James R. Wright and David Wright, who are both also high-ranking Canadian diplomats.

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
General Dynamics	US arms manufacturer
Lockheed	"Nobody is doing a better job of arming the world than Lockheed-Martin"
NATO	The world's largest military alliance. "Take five broken empires, add the sixth one later, and make one big neo-colonial empire out of it all."
Raytheon	Military-industrial complex.

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