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A Short History of Summits in Canada

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A Short History of Summits in Canada A SHORT HISTORY OF SUMMITS IN CANADA Susan Delacourt This year’s gatherings of the G8 in Huntsville and G20 in Toronto will be Canada’s fifth go-round at high-level summitry among the big economic powers. In style and substance, Canada will be borrowing on the trails blazed in Montebello, Toronto, Halifax and Kananaskis over the past three decades. Avec les sommets du G8 à Huntsville et du G20 à Toronto, le Canada accueillera pour la cinquième fois les chefs d’État des grandes puissances économiques du globe lors de rencontres du plus haut niveau. Sur le fond comme sur la forme, affirme Susan Delacourt du Toronto Star, il pourra tirer profit de l’expertise développée depuis trois décennies à Montebello, Toronto, Halifax et Kananaskis. ummer is arriving in Canada. And so is the world. As gathering. There will be the fuss — and the critics who say the leaders of the major economic powers of the plan- this is much ado about nothing. There will be complaints S et prepare to converge on Canada, the Prime Minister from the media — that the security and isolation are makes clear that he wants this gathering to be informal, iso- unprecedented and unwelcome. But the spectacle that will lated and, above all, kept away from the media. unfold in Canada in late June, in Huntsville (for the G8) and Sound familiar? It should. While Prime Minister in Toronto (for the G20), is following a well-worn path in Stephen Harper has taken this approach to the 2010 sum- this nation’s history of summit-hosting. The gatherings to mits of G8 and G20 leaders in Huntsville and Toronto, the be held in Canada in 2010 are borrowing on the experience formula goes all the way back to Pierre Trudeau and the very of the past and are, in many ways, a hybrid mix of trails first summit of this type that Canada hosted, nearly 30 years already blazed in Canadian summitry. ago, in late July 1981. Derek Burney is a self-styled “summit groupie” who was Back then, when Canada was preparing to be the host of the chief administrator of that very first summit at the G7 leaders’ summit at Montebello, Quebec, the marching Montebello, and who went on to see things from other sides orders were clear, — as Patrick Gossage, Trudeau’s press secre- of the organizing desk in subsequent years, as chief of staff tary, recalled in his memoirs of the time. “The PM had long- to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney during the second sum- held ideas about how summits should be run,” Gossage wrote mit in Toronto in 1988 and as an active, engaged observer in his 1987 book, Close to the Charisma. “His ideal was one dur- in years beyond. Earlier this year, Burney held a special ing which the heads of government or state were freed of their Canada-Korea session at Carleton University devoted to armies of aides, released from pre-cooked communiqués, and summit preparation. If there is anyone in Canada who kept away from the pressures of the press. He firmly believed knows what it takes to put on a summit, it is Burney. that only then would they be able to discuss real problems like Security was a huge concern for the summit organizers in adults, responsible leaders, and intelligent caring citizens of 1981, for very good reason. Newly elected US President Ronald the world. The Montebello site had been chosen to maximize Reagan had been wounded in an assassination attempt in isolation, to minimize regular press contact and the minute- March, and the Pope had been shot in May of that year. by-minute pressure to make news.” “There was a lot of tension around the issue of security,” Burney recalls. Today, Canadians may be more accustomed ontebello, a massive, log-cabin resort about an hour to huge security operations surrounding political events, but M outside Ottawa, thus became the first display of back then, there was much public fascination with measures Canada’s hosting duties after the nation was admitted to the being taken to keep the leaders safe: army frogmen patrolling exclusive club of the G5 — then G7, then G8, now G20 — the Ottawa River, helicopters ferrying the leaders to and group of dominant world economic powers. Canada would from the capital. Americans, typically, found a way to get go on, in subsequent decades, to hold three more such sum- around the media ban in the Montebello vicinity, comman- mits, and now, in 2010, it is poised to hold its fifth such deering a nearby church to house the press, where Secretary POLICY OPTIONS 39 JUNE 2010 Susan Delacourt of State Alexander Haig paid regular doing summits for a long, long time, in Canada. In 1981, Trudeau had put the visits. There were other unforeseen ten- says Burney. In fact, the person who 1980 Quebec referendum behind him, sions too: some police cars were took over the summit administration but only a little more than a month banged up during some dryruns in job in 1988 from Burney was a man before the Montebello summit, he had security procedures, and an electrical named Len Edwards — the same Len convened the premiers for a meeting surge in Hydro-Québec lines plunged Edwards who is now Canada’s chief that set events in motion toward repatri- Montebello into darkness for 20 sec- sherpa for this year’s summits. ation of the Constitution — an exercise onds just as the world leaders were “There’s a cadre of expertise on that would culminate dramatically and starting to arrive. organization that the Americans, for fatefully later that year without Quebec’s instance, don’t have,” says Burney. signature on the new federal deal. In rudeau was keen on pushing the “They bring a new team every time 1988, while Mulroney was meeting his T North-South dialogue at this sum- there’s a new administration.” G7 counterparts in Toronto, the House of Commons was busy ratify- Trudeau was keen on pushing the North-South dialogue at this ing the Meech Lake constitu- summit: getting developed nations to think about the tional accord for a second underdeveloped world. This is a theme that has reverberated time and Mulroney’s old friend Lucien Bouchard won through all the Canadian summits — from the 1988 Toronto his by-election in Lac-Saint- summit’s resolve to help relieve debt in poorer nations, up to Jean. Happy events at the and including Harper’s now-controversial aim to focus the 2010 time, but both would later discussions on “maternal health” in developing countries. turn out to be crushing, career-marking disappoint- mit: getting developed nations to think Burney also believes that the infor- ments in Mulroney’s dogged efforts to about the underdeveloped world. This is mal, networking part of summits is the make Quebec a signatory to the a theme that has reverberated through greatest argument for the ongoing Constitution. In 1995, though he was all the Canadian summits — from the gatherings. The ideal outcome of sum- still in don’t-worry-be-happy mode, Jean 1988 Toronto summit’s resolve to help mits, he says, is to put international, Chrétien held the G8 summit in Halifax relieve debt in poorer nations, up to and collective strength behind leaders who as Quebec was hurtling toward a fall ref- including Harper’s now-controversial may need that clout to push policies erendum that turned out to be a nail-bit- aim to focus the 2010 discussions on forward at home. In Toronto, in 1988, ingly close win for the federalist side. “maternal health” in developing coun- which marked Canada’s second turn in The lesson may well be: take tries. Despite its persistence as an issue, summit hosting, the world had truly domestic developments around sum- there have always been skeptics about turned on its axis. Trudeau’s North- mits with a grain of salt. What’s happen- what summits can accomplish for the South fixation of 1981 transformed ing in Canada at the time, to preoccupy poor of the world. In 1981, it was the US into Mulroney’s East-West preoccupa- the hosting prime minister, could have president himself who had reservations tion, and events were moving toward unintended, lingering consequences. about the North-South focus at the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the By 2002, when Canada hosted the Montebello: “Reagan took this interest end of the Cold War a year later. Free summit in the splendid mountain isola- in altering ‘North-South’ interchanges trade was a big topic at the Toronto tion of Kananaskis, Alberta, a larger, as a prime example of his host’s ‘woolly- summit and Mulroney won some sig- non-domestic cloud hung over the gath- minded, impractical, liberal thinking,’” nificant boosts from Reagan and ering — terrorism and the still-vivid according to the Trudeau biography Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. In the clos- memory of the September 11, 2001, penned by Christina McCall and ing communiqué, the G7 leaders said attacks on New York and Washington. Stephen Clarkson. they “strongly welcome” the Canada- Kananaskis was the first G8 meeting Burney, in all modesty, believes US Free Trade Agreement. By the end of after 9/11 and those attacks were the that this first summit set the template the year, Mulroney had won a second foremost issue on the summit agenda. for all others that followed. “I actually majority government and obtained the This summit dispensed with a commu- think that Canada ever since then has free trade agreement with the United niqué altogether and instead produced a established a pretty solid record when States.
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