Sep 16, 2016
By Chris Hall
National Affairs Editor
Stephen Harper hasn’t said much about his activities since he announced his intention to leave politics. Sure, we know he’s starting a consulting business. And yes, he’s made it known via social media that his firm arranged for office space and a strategic partnership with a large law firm in Calgary.
But what he’s been doing to build up that international clientele for his firm, Harper and Associates? What is the suddenly reclusive former prime minister doing to turn his political connections into paying customers?
Well, now we have at least some insight, obtained via hackers who penetrated the private email account of former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell.
Among the emails made public, and widely reported by media around the world, is one Powell sent July 24 to his friend Peter MacKay, the former Harper cabinet minister.
And let’s just preface what comes next by saying not only is the way the information became public unusual, but so is where Harper and Powell rubbed shoulders.
“Peter: I am back from the Bohemian Grove,” Powell writes. “Surprise, Surprise, I sat next to Stephen Harper a couple of times and had a nice discussion.”
For those who don’t know, the Bohemian Grove is an annual event in California that the Washington Post described in a 2011 article as “two weeks of heavy-drinking, super-secret talks, druid worship and other rituals” by some of the richest and most powerful men in the world.
The invited guests include business leaders. Politicians. Artists. All of them men. And it’s been that way for nearly a century.
Not many journalists have made it past the gates to the tents set among the towering stands of redwoods. One who did, described a nine-metre-high owl that symbolizes the wisdom of those attending, writing that the owl serves as the backdrop for the annual theatrical production put on by and for those in attendance.
There’s one rule. No business can be conducted.
What Harper was doing there, whether he’s a member of the Bohemian Club or just a guest, isn’t known. Former colleagues say it’s the first they’ve heard of him attending the retreat.
Attempts to contact Harper were unsuccessful.
But anyone who followed his political career must find the idea of the former prime minister drinking heavily hard to imagine, or for that matter, his communing among the redwoods with like-minded conservatives, engaging in the worship of trees or animals as his personal spiritual source.
He was always, while in office, dismissive of elites.
What is consistent is that he would surround himself with other small-c conservatives intent on keeping the world out of the clutches of Democrats, Liberals and the similarly unenlightened.
Now, Harper is free to do what he likes. But keep this in mind: He was attending an event sponsored by a group that refuses to admit women.
That excludes the interim leader of his party, Rona Ambrose, and Kellie Leitch, a potential Harper successor whose campaign is built around screening immigrants for “anti-Canadian values” like, say, inclusiveness and equality, transparency and openness. The very values this club eschews.
The one exception, it appears, is that those rich Bohemian men can worship whoever, or whatever they please.
Email is authentic, MacKay says
MacKay, in a brief email exchange, says he’s never attended the retreat. But he confirmed the authenticity of the email Powell sent him.
For most of the world Powell’s chat with Harper is not the most significant item contained in the email.
All of the coverage has been focused on his line that follows.
“Grove attendees know that Trump is a disaster,” Powell wrote to MacKay. “Most will vote against, but quite a few will not vote for Hillary and will vote for a third-party candidate.”
By Grove attendees Powell means, of course, wealthy, well-connected Republicans.
