Former UBC president Martha Piper is a member of one of the world's most exclusive private clubs: the Trilateral Commission. The Straight has obtained a copy of the membership list, which includes former prime minister Brian Mulroney, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, and Richard Perle, an advisor to the Bush administration and one of the most outspoken supporters of the U.S.–led attack on Iraq.

Banker David Rockefeller created the Trilateral Commission in 1973 to draw together an unofficial group of high-ranking private citizens in North America, Asia, and Europe to address issues of common concern. There are now approximately 350 members.

According to its Web site (www.trilateral.org//), “The ‘growing interdependence' that so impressed the founders of the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s is deepening into ‘globalization'.”

Former members of the Trilateral Commission in public service include U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, and Bill Graham, acting leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons.

Members of the North American group include: former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, former U.S. trade representative Carla Barshefsky, former U.S. national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Canadian ambassador Raymond Chrétien (nephew of former prime minister Jean Chrétien), former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, former Central Intelligence Agency director William Webster, and Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, who also hosts a talk show on PBS.

Other than Piper, the only other British Columbian member of the commission is Gordon Smith, director of the University of Victoria's Centre for Global Studies.

Conspiracy theorists have often alleged that the Trilateral Commission acts like a world government, but the organization has denied this claim on its Web site.