DC Day III

Tuesday had the 2005 Freedom Forum, which was organised by the IYDU and held at the Heritage Foundation. I came up with the name for the event, so felt I had to attend 🙂

Being the day after the IDU Leaders meeting we were able to get a great range of both US and foreign speakers on the topic of “Free trade can free oppressed societies”.

This is Helen outside the front of the Heritage Foundation building. They are almost next door to Congress and have a great view of the city as we found out when he had cocktails on the roof that evening.

Heritage Vice-President Becky Norton Dunlop (she used to work for President Reagan), Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and IYDU Chairman Donald Simpson.

More photos below:

This is Kim Holmes, also a Heritage VP. He stood down just a few weeks ago as an Assistant Secretary of State.

Stockwell Day was (in my opinion) the best speaker of the day. A former Conservative Alliance Leader in Canada he was quite charismatic and inspiring.

A panel discussing global institutions ranging from the UN to the IMF and World Bank. From left Joan Hills, Co-Chair of Republicans Abroad; Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute; Othmar Karas, Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament and IYDU Executive Secretary Patrick Brown.

Matt Mayer had the longest title being Acting Executive Director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, Department of Homeland Security. According to people in the know he is somewhat of a rising star and will be going onto greater things.

And at the end of the seminar we had an IYDU Executive Meeting. Photo above is showing a representative from Tanzania being welcomed to membership, having had their application accepted.