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Our PM’s first global stage
Canada is hosting the G7 in June and it’s our new prime minister’s first time on the global stage, this time in his own backyard.
When Canada hosts the G7 Leaders’ Summit at Kananaskis, Alta., this year, it’s likely to be the new Canadian prime minister’s debut on the world stage.
“It’s important to have a meeting that’s substantive and, at the same time, delivers,” says Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University and president of the World Refugee & Migration Council. “This is where they can make their foreign policy mark. It’s make or break for the new prime minister on the international stage as he’s going to be pressing the flesh with his G7 counterparts, including, possibly, the president of the United States.”
Many of the players — old and new — will be hoping for a workaday meeting during which they don’t once again see an “eruption” from U.S. President Donald Trump, the likes of which happened in 2018 in Charlevoix, the last time Canada hosted.
As Roland Paris, professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa and former adviser to prime minister Justin Trudeau says, “the G7 agenda is deep and wide.
“Much of it continues from year to year in the form of working groups on issues such as economic resilience, science and technology, public health, climate change and sustainable development.”
But he says, even though that is so, the challenge will be the new U.S. president.
“The challenge this year will be to avoid the kind of eruption from Donald Trump that we saw after the 2018 G7 summit at Charlevoix,” Paris says. “Certain issues, including climate change, risk becoming flashpoints. Trump may not only oppose particular initiatives; in the worst case he may decide to demonstrate his disdain for the G7 and its members by sabotaging the entire event.”
Paris therefore says that the role of Canada, which holds the presidency of the G7 this year, is to work with the incoming Trump Administration to “identify issues of common interest and to focus the summit agenda on those items — and then hope for the best.”
The other significantly complicating factor, Paris points out, is that by the time the summit rolls around, there could be a different federal government in place, Canadian officials who were discussing the G7 agenda in the leadup to the summit could see changes in a new government’s direction at the last possible hour.
“[They could receive] quite different directions from their political masters shortly before the summit is scheduled to take place,” Paris says. “Canadian diplomats are professionals. They will adapt. But the timing of this summit is not ideal for Canada.”
