A former Canadian defence minister has become the most senior politician in history to claim that the Illuminati is real, and genuinely controls the world.

Conspiracy theory fans have long claimed that the shadowy group controls world governments, and may be behind events such as JFK’s assassination.

Paul Hellyer, who was Canada’s Defence Minister in the 1960s, says that the group is not only real, it is currently ‘sitting on’ a technology which can reverse climate change but choosing not to use it.

Hellyer claims this has been done at the behest of the petroleum industry, which has close ties to the group.

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Hellyer said, ‘You have a got secret cabal that’s actually running the world and they’ve managed to keep this technology under wraps until they can cash in the trillions of oil assets that they’ve got.

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‘And it’s not going to change until hundreds of thousands of people band together and say look “you’ve got to come clean, tell us what is going on, and change your priorities to save the world for further generations instead of blowing it on wars”.’

Hellyer claims that the ‘cure’ for climate change is stolen alien technology, and has previously spoken out about his belief in UFOs.