OTTAWA (Ottawa Citizen) -- Four days after they arrived quietly at a Kanata, Ontario hotel, the world's rich and powerful left just as mysteriously, in limos and SUVs with blacked-out windows.

The Bilderberg Group, a secretive organization of politicians and business leaders from around the world, gave no public statements. With private security guards and metal barriers keeping outsiders on the street, the Bilderbergers met in secret and then whisked themselves away in ones and twos, mostly to the airport.

What they talked about at the Brookstreet Hotel is still a secret. The group meets annually, and is usually rumoured to discuss international politics and business, from Middle East crises to oil prices.

They emerged singly Sunday -- Bilderberg president Etienne Davignon of Belgium, American David Rockefeller, Italian economist Mario Monti, European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes from the Netherlands, and, watchers thought, Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi.

Protesters on the sidewalk have their own version of the agenda: world domination, a merger of Canada with the United States and Mexico, hiding the cure for cancer, suppression of cars that get 200 miles per gallon of fuel, an invasion of Iran, and slavery for the common people of all countries.

About a dozen protesters stood outside Sunday, slightly fewer than on Saturday. Two police officers watched from across the street while others were inside the hotel. They carried signs protesting the "NWO" (new world order) and denouncing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as "an inside job."

"When you've got this many high rollers in one place, then there's a story," said Geoff Matthews, editor and publisher of a small newspaper called the Kingston Eye Opener. "In my opinion, what they started to plan about 10 years ago is the unification of North America without the consent of the people. It's now in fast-forward."

The meetings always draw intensely curious outsiders who believe the Bilderbergers need to be exposed. One of these is Daniel Estulin, a Canadian who moved to Spain about 15 years ago because, he says, the Central Intelligence Agency tried to kill him. He feels safer in Spain. “I'm much further out of the reach of the secret service both Canadian and American.”

“I write the stories everyone else is afraid to write,” he said.

He and others staked out positions on the sidewalk where they could get a clear view of the hotel's front door.

For hours, they watched through binoculars and telephoto lenses, waiting as men and women got into limos. Cameras clicked, and the Bilderberg-watchers scrolled through digital images afterwards, trying to identify which member of the group they had just recorded.

Alex Jones, a documentary filmmaker from Texas, showed up with two of his crew.

“Man, this is just evil,” he muttered as he paced up and down, watching more limos drive past. He was detained on his arrival in Canada, but released after other media asked questions about him. “It's a group of very powerful individuals whose objective is to create one world government, based on an economic model from the Middle Ages,” he said. This would be “a post-industrial model where you have slaves and slave owners.”

He claimed to have Bilderberg insiders feeding him information.

Protester J. P. Arial of Ottawa was there for the fourth straight day.

"They're ruining our planet. They're suppressing free energy, controlling the food industry. They're forcing farmers to switch to genetically modified seeds,” he said. “They want to control everyone. No freedom, no democracy.”

But most residents took no notice of the black cars running in and out between the computer companies, past the lineup at Tim Hortons on March Road, and off to the airport.