Canada Will Host G20 Next Year: Harper
Posted September 25, 2009 9:18 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Canada will host G8 and G20 summits next year as a small group of rich countries hands over global economic supremacy to a larger group that includes China, India and other emerging economies.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak held a joint press conference Friday to announce that the G8 will still take place in Huntsville, Ont., in June, but it will mainly focus on security and non-economic issues.
Canada will also host a G20 summit around the same time, also in the Muskoka region north of Toronto, Harper said. Officials did not say exactly where the larger summit would be held, but said Canada and Korea would co-chair the meeting.
“We are in the midst of witnessing an important transformation in international architecture,” Harper said.
“Really going forward from now … we will view the G20 summit as the world’s premier economic summit.”
Canada’s G20 summit will focus on mainly economic issues, and will officially crown the group as the most powerful economic decision-making body in the world. It’s a changing of the guard that reflects the growing importance of emerging markets in the functioning of the increasingly integrated global economy.
South Korea will host a second G20 summit later next year. The G20 rotates its presidency and 2010 is Korea’s turn. It has been lobbying hard to persuade leaders to hold a summit in Seoul.
The unprecedented global financial crisis was caused by the G8 countries but has dragged in the rest of the world, prompting the G20 to take on added importance over the past year.
Now, as the Group of 20 becomes entrenched and the International Monetary Fund acts to give more voting power to emerging markets, the power of the rich, advanced countries has been shaken.
“The G7 meeting has served its purpose for the last many decades, talking about a whole host of issues,” Lee said.
“However, now with the passage of time there are global challenges that the advanced countries cannot resolve alone.”
Harper said the move does not diminish Canada’s voice in global affairs – even though he was not in favour of the G8 ceding power to the G20 until recently.
“Canada will have an important place in the discussions of the future,” he said, adding the G20 has proven itself as an effective force in mitigating damage caused by the global recession.
“We have an evolution. We have a global economy and a global crisis, and we have seen the G20, which is a truly representative group, become a forum for a sort of global governance … for economic matters. It’s been effective.”
Harper also threw his support behind U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders, who used the opening of the G20 plenary meeting on Friday to accuse Iran of building a secret nuclear fuel plant, and called on the country to stop provoking the rest of the world.
“We welcome the statement,” Harper told reporters. He said Canada has been outspoken about evidence that Iran is involved in nuclear activity.
“Canada will be very supportive of whatever actions are necessary to deal with what is a tremendous threat to international peace and security.”
Both Harper and Lee also spoke about the importance of preventing climate change, but they downplayed the importance of meetings scheduled in Copenhagen in December. The meetings have been billed as crucial for negotiating the next global steps in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
But Harper and Lee both said the Copenhagen meeting is only one step in a long process – suggesting they are trying lower expectations.
Lee said he would likely attend, heeding a call from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for leaders to give the meeting heft. But Harper said he had not yet decided if he would go, and that Environment Minister Jim Prentice would be representing Canada.
