Ezra Levant exposes the World Economic Forum’s Davos 2024 as a "heart of darkness," where BlackRock’s Larry Fink—with $10T in assets—pushes exploitative ESG policies, rebranded by activist Fernando Morales de la Cruz as Exploitation, Slavery, and Child Labor (ESG). Levant highlights WEF’s lack of accountability, including no lobbyist registry, while 75M+ children labor globally under corporate-backed schemes like Nestlé, Unilever, and Starbucks’ supply chains. Canadian laws such as BLS 211 fail to enforce consequences, with growers earning less than 1% of retail prices (e.g., Davos coffee at 4.50–5 francs). Meta’s shift toward free speech under Trump contrasts WEF’s past censorship, yet systemic change remains elusive unless family-owned firms like IKEA lead reform. Levant’s critique underscores how globalist elites profit from human rights abuses while shielding themselves from scrutiny. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, we're back in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, two days into Donald Trump's presidency.
It's January 22nd, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Ezra Levant here in Davos, Switzerland.
I'm here for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
I just landed in Zurich a couple hours ago.
I came in from Washington, D.C., which, of course, is the center of the Trump Revolution, a revolution against globalism, against socialism, against environmentalism, against wokeism.
And it's incredible, the energy America's back.
It's a nationalism.
And to fly here to the heart of darkness with this crypto government, that really is what the World Economic Forum is.
It's like going from light to darkness.
I'm standing in front of the BlackRock Pavilion, which is at the end of the main street in Davos.
You can see these perfectly polished Mercedes vehicles.
BlackRock, as you know, is the enormous asset manager, trillions of dollars under management.
Larry Fink is their boss.
You might think, well, that's a super capitalist.
That's a Donald Trump kind of guy.
You're wrong, because for some reason, and I don't know what it is, Larry Fink and other masters of the universe like that, they use their investment power to corrupt companies through shareholder decisions.
For example, if BlackRock owns a big stake of a company, they will insist that that company uses what's called ESG, environmental, social, and governance measurements.
That's the corporate version of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
So what's happened is you might think that these massive corporations are capitalist running dogs, but actually they're socialists.
I mean, just like George Soros is a billionaire, but he's a socialist.
In fact, I think it's fair to say he's a communist and a one-world governmentologist.
So you might be asking, well, what is the difference between globalism and nationalism?
I'll give you an example.
Nationalism, it's tied to the people on the ground in a particular territory, a people, a culture, a language.
There's a cohesive local group, but globalism doesn't believe in that.
It doesn't believe in the same local democracy.
It's the opposite of populism.
So, for example, here at Davos, you'll have meetings behind closed doors with people from different countries, none of whom have an elected mandate, and they'll sort of hammer out policy ideas and ideologies and philosophies.
You might know the phrase, build back better or the great reset.
These are ideas hatched at the World Economic Forum.
Now, they're not passed in laws.
They don't issue legislation.
They don't debate bills or anything like that, but they come up with these policies.
And then all the delegates here go back to their home countries like birds in a flock.
They're all in formation.
And it's sort of startling.
One of the main things about Davos is that it is not transparent.
Whereas in Washington, D.C. or in Ottawa, Canada, or in London, UK, you have a lobbyist registry.
Politicians have to disclose who they met with.
There's a transcript of the debates in Congress or Parliament called a Hansert, a congressional record.
There is some scrutiny.
There's checks and balances.
In real nationalist democracies, there's an opposition party.
In parliamentary systems like Canada in the UK, there's question period.
Not so with the World Economic Forum.
There's no opposition here.
The World Economic Forum is owned by one man, Klaus Schwab, and he cannot be removed.
It's his party.
He's a billionaire because of him.
There's no independent press as there is in a real government.
Oh, there are journalists here, but they're part of the system.
They pay to play.
They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for inside access.
On the other hand, Rebel News, we apply for accreditation every year, but they don't even respond, actually.
Don't even bother to reject us because we ask skeptical questions.
So it's iconic to me that BlackRock is at the beginning of the main thoroughfare because they are in some ways the dominant force of the World Economic Forum.
One last thing before we start making our way down the street.
As all Canadians know and those who follow Canada would know, a few weeks ago, Justin Trudeau, who was a young World Economic Forum global leader, he announced his intention to resign.
And you might recall that Klaus Schwab had boasted about Justin Trudeau's government that half the members in the cabinet were World Economic Forum.
There's that classic phrase where he said, we have penetrated the cabinets.
Here's that.
What we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on, that we penetrate the cabinets.
So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau and I would know that half of this cabinet or even more half of this cabinet are for our actually young noble leaders of the World Economic Forum.
Well you might think that Klaus Schwab is losing his right-hand man in Canada, Justin Trudeau, but the two leading candidates to replace Justin Trudeau, Christia Freeland and Mark Carney, both of them are World Economic Forum directors or former directors.
I don't know how that was even possible for Christia Freeland to maintain her position as a World Economic Forum governor while she was a member of the Canadian cabinet.
Such a clear conflict of interest.
But don't worry about Klaus Schwab.
With Trudeau gone, he's got a choice between two World Economic Forum prime ministers.
And I'm afraid the next Prime Minister of Canada will be like the last Prime Minister of Canada, a World Economic Forum pawn, a pawn.
It's sort of like the king is dead, long live the king.
Justin Trudeau will be gone, but a new puppet will be put in place.
It's interesting to me that Pierre Polyev, the leading candidate, the head of the Conservative Party, most likely to win 46% in the polls right now, has said that he will not permit his cabinet to come to the World Economic Forum because it's not a democratic place.
And same thing with Alberta's popular premier, Danielle Smith.
She says that the kind of power-hungry boastfulness of manipulating the world.
I mean, Klaus Schwab really is a Dr. Evil character.
She would not have her cabinet come here as well.
So that's why we're here.
We're here because so many of the decisions in our lives are made here in Davos.
And we're here because they don't want us here.
And we're here because there are very few, if any, other independent media here.
So I hope that in the course of our time here, you'll see things you don't see anywhere else.
I just arrived myself because I was in Washington for the inauguration.
I'm glad I was there.
A year ago, the only two words on anyone's lips here were Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
And it turns out that those two men succeeded.
It'll be curious to me what the spirit of the World Economic Forum is, especially given that Trump has said he will address them, not in person, but by video.
It'll be interesting to me: do these masters of the universe try to push back against Trump, try to stop Trump and block him?
Or do they go with the flow and try and profit off it?
It'll be interesting to me to see.
Some companies are indeed peeling back their ESG globalism.
I think in many cases they're just renaming it, but keeping it in its intentions.
It is socialism or cultural Marxism, pure and simple.
I don't think they'll give it up easily.
For all our reports, you got to go to WEFREPORTS.com.
And it's pretty hard to get here.
I took three flights.
I went to Washington, Toronto, Montreal, Zurich.
And then I took three different trains to get here.
They make it hard to get to the World Economic Forum.
It's in this ski village called Davos, and they take over the whole town.
They book every hotel room and every Airbnb.
So we have to stay one town over in closters, and it's a 40-minute train ride.
They really, really don't want outsiders here.
It's, you know, the old saying: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
What happens in Davos stays in Davos?
Like I say, there's no independent press.
There's no checks and balances.
There's no lobbyist registry.
There's no independent media.
We are trying to find out what goes on in Davos.
And we have one advantage.
And that is when these VVIPs leave their protected fortress and come out and mix with the peasants, they let the guard down because this is their safe place.
Because, like I said, there is no independent press other than Rebel News.
So when we actually encounter these very, very important people, not that many of them choose to talk with us, but we at least have the chance to put questions to them in a way that we wouldn't in other jurisdictions.
In Canada, as you may know, my colleague David Menzies was arrested five times in 2024 just for asking questions of politicians, including asking questions of the aforementioned Christia Freeland, one of the candidates for prime minister.
What I like about Davos is that the Swiss police have a very light touch, and as long as you don't threaten a VBIP or touch them, they'll let you ask them whatever questions you like.
So it actually is a very journalist-friendly culture in Switzerland, even if it's hard to get here to Davos.
All right, that's my introduction.
I'm delighted to be here.
I'll get over the jet lag.
We got work to do.
I'm going to go meet up with my colleagues Avi Yamini and Sheila Gunread.
Check out all our work at WEFReports.com.
And if you can chip in to our economy-class airfare to get here, boy, I'd be grateful to it.
I mean, they make it tough to get here.
They make it expensive.
We're doing some home cooking to keep the prices down.
And of course, there's a cafeteria there that we sort of warm up in.
If you can help us out, please do.
All right, we'll keep you posted at wefreports.com.
Mr. Fink, are you going to follow Donald Trump's plan and get rid of DEI and ESG in your companies?
BlackRock really is the opposite of Donald Trump in so many ways.
Are you going to change it all in light of the U.S. presidency?
How is Donald Trump?
Have you talked to Donald Trump since he was elected?
Is the World Economic Forum a counterpoint to Donald Trump?
Why are you running away from simple questions?
Just answer a question.
Have you talked to President Trump yet?
Why are your bodyguards pushing away journalists, Mr. Fink?
They're simple questions.
Is it that hard to answer a question that you need bodyguards and to swerve through traffic?
Is the next four years going to be bad for business with Donald Trump in charge?
Is peace the last thing you want on this world?
Which makes more money for you, war in Ukraine or peace in Ukraine?
Ezra Levant's my name, Mr. Fink.
Did you just take a photo of you?
Am I supposed to be scared?
Is that a threat, Mr. Fink?
Are you used to bullying your way through life?
is that how you've lived your entire life without having look at this Push back, mate.
Don't push me, bro.
Don't push me.
When was the last time you answered a question that you didn't know was coming?
Why are you so unaccountable?
Isn't that what you love about the World Economic Forum?
You control everything.
Why do you think you deserve so much power?
Hey, Abby Yamini.
Should I be scared now?
Which of your former directors do you want to run Canada?
Mark Carney or Christia Freeland?
Good name.
Don't push me, bro.
What?
What are you getting violent for, man?
I could push just like you can, man.
Look at these thugs.
They fund wars around the world and then you question them.
They try not only to intimidate you, but physically assault you.
What's with taking photos of journalists who ask you prickly questions?
Who's more powerful, you or President Trump?
Why do you think you're so disliked around the world?
Why are so many U.S. states divesting from your ESG schemes?
Why are you putting your ideology ahead of your investors with ESG, Mr. Fink?
Isn't that being disloyal to shareholders, putting your ideology ahead of rate of return?
Why do you think you're above accountability?
Is it because you're rich?
I just feel like walking with him now because his big scary bodyguards.
And I don't know, Ezra.
I just want to make it clear I will not kill myself.
I have no suicidal thoughts either.
Mr. Fink's taking pictures of me and Abiyamini.
I think that's meant to intimidate.
It's a little weird, though.
It feels a little thin-skinned.
Do you think you're above questions?
Feelings of Thin-Skinned Security00:05:40
Like, why don't you even answer?
Surely you have the answers.
Why do you think BlackRock has become so hated, one of the world's most reviled brands?
Do you take any responsibility for that?
Who do you feel accountable to?
It's obviously not shareholders.
Do you have a God complex?
Was Biden the best thing for you?
And did you fail by not being able to get another Democrat president?
Why don't you run for public office and test the support for your ideological ideas?
Is this the most uncomfortable you've ever felt?
Do you think this is okay?
You're a security guard, a thug.
Obviously you do.
You took my photo because you're hoping he'll catch up with me later.
Is that supposed to scare me?
Have your bodyguards learned from you to disrespect the little people?
Is that how you feel about the little people, Mr. Fink?
Are you not worried because you own the local police?
What politicians have you had meetings with?
Or is that a secret?
Why don't you publish your itinerary?
Is it because you're doing lobbying or being lobbied?
Do you think this makes Black Rock look better or worse?
The fact that you've got hired thugs pushing journalists into cars, into buildings?
Is that just typical?
Is that the way you do business?
Doesn't it look a little bit weird that someone who's rich, powerful, and smart as you can't answer any questions?
Or is it that you just think you're above questions?
That's karma.
Your security guard called that karma.
Is that how you feel?
What's the end game for you?
You're rich, you're powerful.
What's next for you?
Do you want to run for president one day?
Or do you have bigger goals?
Don't push me on the ice.
You don't want a lawsuit now, do you?
Do you think there's no point in running for office because you can control them?
You can control both sides from outside.
Why are you pushing ladies?
Mate.
Where are you from?
Why are you such a thug?
What are you so angry about in life?
Did somebody hurt you as a kid?
Who are we going to meet tonight for dinner?
Run away.
Run away.
There you go.
Well, I reckon that pretty much demonstrates exactly what Black Rock is about.
That weird move, I mean, he's got two bodyguards who are really handsy.
There was no punches, but there was lots of pushing.
The move by Fink himself to take photos of us, that's weird.
Weird.
I'm not suicidal.
Definitely not suicidal.
I just, I feel like, let's walk the other way.
You know, normally masters of the universe don't tread on the ground like us commoners.
They have vehicles drive them around Davos.
But he made the mistake of walking down the street and I think that's the first time he's been asked unscripted questions ever.
And how angry did he get?
First trying to whiz through traffic, which is everything about his behavior was so bizarre.
The only thing that seemed to actually come really natural to him was having people do his dirty work.
Yeah.
You know, there's some very, very important people at Davos.
I mean, John Kerry is an example.
I bumped into Tony Blair last year.
There are some very powerful people.
At most, they have sort of one assistant.
There's no need for bodyguards in this town.
There's armed Swiss security everywhere.
But to have two thugs to push and shove, I think that shows the mindset of Larry Fink himself.
And taking pictures of us.
I'm happy to tell him my name.
My name is Ezra Levant, and I ask questions about BlackRock.
And I'm Avi Yumini, and I'll also ask questions no matter who you have near you.
And it's exactly why we're here, WEFReports.com.
Check out all our reports from on the ground this week.
And if you support our work, please consider chipping in for the enormous costs to get here and potentially some security.
Ezra Levant here at the heart of Davos for the World Economic Forum.
Behind me, you can see the security perimeter up in that stall.
You can see three snipers, maybe?
Asking Questions At WEF00:06:43
I don't know.
You can see some military police in that vehicle over there.
It's not just regular police.
It's police in these camouflage vans.
As you know, Rebel News is denied accreditation for good reason.
We ask prickly questions, so we stay outside the perimeter.
I like to say it's like we're outside the moat.
And every once in a while, the drawbridge comes down and these V VIPs come out and we ask them questions in our signature Rebel News style.
Sheila, how's it been the past few days?
You know what?
It's been very low-key, I think, compared to other years.
This is my first year here.
But it feels as though for some of these people, they're mourning themselves because a lot of Trump's executive orders are undoing a lot of WEF policies like net zero, DEI.
So they're kind of depressed, I think.
Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump said we're getting out of the World Health Organization.
We're getting out of the Paris Climate Accord.
We're getting out of most of the foreign aid business.
We're getting out of the transgender wokeness.
That's wars.
Getting out of wars.
The first day that we were here, we confronted BlackRock, and those guys are just war profiteers.
They sell arms on one side and then make money rebuilding on the other side.
And I think they have to rethink their business model.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to me because there are some real ideologues here, but there's also people here just to hustle, to lobby, selling, pitching, and selling.
And will they tack towards Donald Trump?
Mark Zuckerberg has realigned Facebook away from censorship, away from wokeness.
And I mean, he signed a deal with Dana White of UFC.
Google's doing the same.
Or is Google doing that?
I didn't know that.
Google last week made a statement that they are considering moving away from DEI.
I'll believe it when I see it.
So I suppose a pragmatic business approach would be align with Donald Trump and the richest country in the world, but the ideologues might resist that.
I wonder if there's any entity that says we're going to be the anti-Trump.
I tell you, last year, everyone was very butch about how they were going to stop Trump, fight Trump.
Maybe they're just resigned to it.
I mean, Donald Trump has only been president for a couple of days, and yet his dominance, not just of America, but of the world, is already so evident.
I mean, it really is incredible how quickly he got the transition going.
I mean, and I think half of the purpose here, like Mark Carney, he loved the World Economic Forum because he was always pushing green capitalism, green environmental rules for businesses.
That is dead now.
Yeah, you know, we have tried to talk to a few people about what they think about Donald, just the victory of Donald Trump and what that means for the World Economic Forum.
They do not want to talk about it.
I think they have to rethink their reason for being now.
Well, also, there's the different stages of grieving.
They're probably still bargaining with their grief.
Well, listen, Sheila, thank you.
You've made a very long journey.
Abby came all the way from Melbourne, Australia.
But to get here from Edmonton, Edmonton, Toronto, Zurich.
Edmonton, Amsterdam, then Zurich, then a train here.
Very long journey, but I appreciate it.
We do this every year.
I think it's a real flagship project for Rebel News because we realize that although no actual laws are passed here at the World Economic Forum, the ideas are hatched and marinated.
It's like a laboratory.
It's the headwaters of all the bad ideas.
And I have to tell you, our presence here is actually pretty well received by the locals.
But walking the streets with Avi, you know, this is his fourth year.
This is my first.
He could run for mayor of Davos.
Everybody is stopping him, thanking him for the journalism.
The police today said that they saw our BlackRock video.
Really?
It's kind of fun.
Right now, I think we're the only skeptical journalists here.
I think you're right.
I mean, and we had a little bit of that too.
There are some locals who live here year-round, and you can sort of detect them pretty quickly.
And not all of them are thrilled with these VVIPs.
Up there, there's a sign where they want the WEF out.
So the little put up their little protest signs.
I think I've seen that before.
I get a kick out of coming here because where else are you going to have this close access to V VIPs?
And I'll give credit to the Swiss police.
They have a light touch.
If I was this close to Christia Freeland, Justin Trudeau in Canada, I would be arrested.
In fact, that's happened to our friend David Menzies five times.
So we're not allowed in the Sanctum Sanctorum, but we are able to do some work out here.
And I'm really glad you're out here.
It's in sync with what you've done so many times with the UN's global warming conferences.
So I'm glad we're here.
And there's still two and a half days to go.
So we'll keep at it.
We will.
Thanks, Sheila.
For all our reports.
And to help crowdfund our cost of getting here, please go to WEFreports.com.
And Carmen, why are you here at the World Economic Forum?
Because I'm the government counselor of the County of Zurich for economics.
Oh.
And that's why I'm here.
What do you make of the earthquake of Donald Trump and his inauguration?
How has that changed things?
We don't talk about international politics.
Well, I don't mean the politics.
I mean, how will that change the world?
I mean, put aside politics, put aside whether you like it or not.
What changes will it cause?
Always changes the world, sometimes to better and sometimes not to better.
Yes.
The World Economic Forum sometimes is called globalist and environmentalist.
And Donald Trump is a critic of those things.
Do you think the World Economic Forum might shift direction a little bit now?
I think the most beautiful is here in Davos that people talk together.
And this is necessary that we are talking together even in the future.
But to come here to talk is extremely expensive.
It's hard to get here.
And to be allowed inside costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So given the populist wave in Europe and in America, are these just the elites talking to themselves?
No, I don't think so because there are many people.
They are very important for their countries are here.
And it's important that leaders, political leaders, and even leaders in economic affairs are talking together.
One of the themes of Davos is high-tech.
Meta's Free Speech Stand00:06:37
And Amazon is here and Meta is here and Palantir is here.
Twitter's not here.
I think they would regard this as a waste of money.
But as you can see behind me, Meta has quite a large pavilion, and then they have sort of an outreach to the public.
They're giving away free hot chocolate, and it's pretty chilly out here, so that's well received by the delegates.
A fascinating thing happened just in the last few weeks, and that is Meta, which has been probably the world's largest censor, you know, measured by actual people censored.
There's about 2 billion users of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp.
All three of those companies are owned by Meta.
I mean, Facebook alone is enormous, and then Instagram is a little bit younger demographic, and WhatsApp is especially popular outside the United States.
Mark Zuckerberg really was a leader in censorship.
And I was shocked to learn recently that Facebook has 40,000 employees who work in censorship in every language on the globe.
And that's just the people.
They also use AI or machine learning to censor.
They detect images and words or even sounds, and they automatically detect things.
Mark Zuckerberg, you could say he's in the social media business, the communication business.
It would be just as accurate to say he's in the don't communicate business, the stopping of communication.
All that was true until a few weeks ago when Mark Zuckerberg started to do strange things.
He announced that he was going to have a huge partnership with Dana White of UFC, the most masculine, expletive, lace, profane man's man and a close personal friend of Donald Trump.
I thought, that's weird.
Because Facebook has been a Democrat organization to the bone, including massive donations and donations in kind from Mark Zuckerberg, who spent actually the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars on a get-out-the-vote scheme in 2020 for the Democrats.
So he started hanging out with Republicans, and then boom, he released a video where he said they're going to fire those 40,000 censors.
They're going to move away from censorship, including on key issues like immigration and transgenderism.
Here's a clip of Zuckerberg saying that.
First, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S. After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.
We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth.
But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S.
So over the next couple of months, we're going to phase in a more comprehensive community notes system.
He also said something very interesting.
Zuckerberg said that he was going to stand up for free speech, not just in America, but in other countries in the world.
He alluded to Brazil.
And I think the most important thing he said was that he was going to stand up for free speech with the support of the State Department.
Because of course, when any multinational company operates in Brazil or in France or whatever, you must operate subject to the laws of the land.
And if you don't, you might be blocked, your people might be arrested or whatever.
So for Zuckerberg to say he was going to have a free speech stand around the world requires him to have the support of the State Department.
Obviously, he had that support from Trump before he made this statement.
There's one last thing I want to show you from Zuckerberg's comments.
He said this is going to start in the United States.
I'm not sure if it's going to, when it's going to roll out around the world, including in my home in Canada.
Here's Zuckerberg saying that.
Finally, we're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.
The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world.
Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there.
Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down.
China has censored our apps from even working in the country.
The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government.
And that's why it's been so difficult over the past four years when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship.
By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.
But now we have the opportunity to restore free expression, and I am excited to take it.
It'll take time to get this right, and these are complex systems.
They're never going to be perfect.
There's also a lot of illegal stuff that we still need to work very hard to remove.
But the bottom line is that after years of having our content moderation work focus primarily on removing content, it is time to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our systems, and getting back to our roots about giving people voice.
Which brings us back to Davos.
Meta, and you can see meta-AI, artificial intelligence, that's the big buzzword in 2025.
I think people are coming to terms with what does AI mean?
How will it affect our privacy?
How will it affect jobs?
How will it affect our perception of reality when there's so many fake images now?
It's hard to even tell what's real.
AI is a big focus of the World Economic Forum, but until now, AI has been used for the nefarious purpose of censorship.
And it'll be interesting to me to see if this pavilion, which is so popular with the cold delegates here warming up with hot chocolate, will they become champions of free speech in a non-free speech jurisdiction?
I say again, last year, the two names on everyone's lips at Davos were Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and they wanted to stop both of them.
Well, now add Mark Zuckerberg to that list.
Will the forces of free speech and Trumpist America overwhelm the forces of globalism and censorship as presided over by Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink?
It'll be very interesting to see, but this company just flipped.
As we'll bet, you're on the streets of Davos at the World Economic Forum.
Complaining About Child Labor00:06:57
And you know, we've been coming here for several years and we've, believe it or not, gotten to know some folks, including an excellent social activist, Fernando Morales de la Cruz, who believes in fighting against child labor.
That is a major scourge around the world.
We might not think about it in Canada, but it's a serious problem.
Fernando, why don't you give us an update on the state of child labor across the world?
Well, first of all, I have to tell you that Canadians have child labor in their coffee, in their lunch, and in their dinner.
And as every one of us also, they have child labor in their smartphones and in their laptops.
You're right.
We don't think about that because we don't see it.
Yes, because it happens far away.
Yes, but brands from Apple to SARA all use child labor and even luxury brands.
So I'm here complaining because 54 years the WEF has been saying that they are improving the state of the world or having entrepreneurship for the common good.
And unfortunately, it is the opposite.
They have increased mystery, hunger, malnutrition.
And there are hundreds of the top thousand companies in the world, which are actually members of the WEF, that actually have, in total, more than 75 million children.
This is absolutely unacceptable because, I mean, how many children are they going to have before they stop?
This has to stop immediately because not only is it cruel and illegal, the press is the problem.
There are very few journalists like you trying to hold power to account.
And nobody's even tickling the dinosaurs, as I tell my daughters.
Somebody has to tickle the dinosaurs and make them move.
And worse, if we have here world leaders and people like Christia Friedland and others, they should actually be complaining to the corporates instead of saying, yeah, don't worry.
In Canada, we are going to legalize child labor as is happening.
There's a law in Canada, BLS 211, which unfortunately doesn't stop child labor.
And in the parliament, a former friend of mine.
I say former because I disagree totally with what she did, Senator Méville Deschen, put forward a proposal which became law that only protects the companies that exploit children by allowing them only to make a report and then they are not liable.
Just a report, that's crazy.
Now, you mentioned to me you had something you wanted to show and I can see you have like a poster in there.
Can we take a look at that?
Sure, I can show you.
This is one of the hundreds of cartoons made by cartoonists from all over the world complaining and protesting against the World Economic Forum.
But this cartoon is especially important because it is about ESG investments, and Canada has the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, which actually… Very large, very large.
And we are talking about a lot of money.
But the money is not theirs.
The money is from the teachers who work very hard and actually are educating children in Canada.
But the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is also our shareholder in companies that have slavery.
So let's take a look.
It says WEF improving the state of the world, ESG investments, investment class, but you've changed what the letters are.
E is exploitation.
S is slavery and child labor.
G is more gains.
Yes.
And Dr. Schwab, BlackRock, Church of England, Catholic Church, ABP Netherlands, Norwegian Pension Fund, Ontario Teachers Pension Fund.
So these are massive investment.
We were just talking about BlackRock.
They have more than 10 trillion.
It's a little more money.
10 trillion.
And they talk about ESG, but you're saying it's just a pay.
It's just like we've heard the phrase greenwashing or pinkwashing.
Investor fraud.
But here we have Dr. Schwab.
It's a very important cartoon by Pacobaca from Mexico, where a little girl is complaining to Dr. Schwab.
And he's got the corks in his ears, has earplugs.
He doesn't want to hear it.
But the truth is, 54 years claiming to be improving the state of the world, and there are tens of millions of children who work in the supply chain.
Every coffee we have here in Davos has child labor and slavery.
We can continue like this because the coffee growers receive less than 1% of what we pay for a coffee here, which is 4 francs 50 or 5.
Fernando, have you had any luck?
I mean, every year you're so passionate.
I love to see you.
You're such a friendly and engaging personality, but you talk about difficult things and you've come to their party.
They don't want to think about these tough things.
If anything, they want to cover them up.
Have you had any luck?
Is there anyone on the inside who's open to your message?
Well, I must say that I'm grateful to the Holy Father who from Rome has been sending messages, especially just a few days ago, he sent a message complaining about the complicity of the media in regard to child labor.
Of course, within the web, there are a few people who are actually fighting inside.
I'd rather not name them because they're very few.
But they are the very few who say we have no business in slavery and child labor, and every one of us should get out.
There are companies that have begun to do that.
I can say Ikea, for example.
Yeah, yep.
But Ikea did it because he's a family.
So the Cambridge family has a CEO and this CEO is very passionate.
And he says, we don't want anything to do with this.
And they're working on it.
Well, that's good to hear.
It's, let's say, 99% good.
It's already good.
But there are some companies here like Nestle that exploit millions of children, Unilever, McDonald's, Starbucks.
And I can't continue, but they add up to more than 75 million children.
And I would like to tell the Canadians, who are most of them are wonderful human beings, to think that when they are eating something from Mexico, tomatoes or strawberries or drinking coffee or having a chocolate or with sugar, it has child labor.
But it's not the fault of the Mexicans.
It's the fault of the Canadian companies, which are exploiting the people or the American companies, which are multinationals or Nestle.
And all of these companies have business models based on exploiting the weak and the poor.
And I hope the next Prime Minister of Canada, we don't know who he's going to be, is a little bit more serious because in Canada, there's also child labor.
Even in Quebec, there are children exploited, picking civilian.
Yes?
Okay, I didn't know that.
We'll flip it.
Fernando, it's so nice to bump into you and thank you for giving us a strong message.
And do you have a website or something we can check out?
The most important thing is to Google my name, Fernando Morales de la Cruz.
I let others like you interview me and whatever you post, people will be able to learn.
And thank you so much for this opportunity because the Canadians have to stop being indifferent.
They can change things by also writing to their representatives and demanding zero slavery and zero child labor.
Thank you so much.
Great to see you again.
There you have it.
Fernando Morales de la Cruz, an activist against child labor, 75 million kids around the world.
Shocking to hear.
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