Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
16 February 2011
Birth of the G20
Nations gather together to try to find collective solutions to problems that bother them all, but it’s usually only the biggest countries that have any real impact
There are many other examples of international groups that have become endless gabfests with little action. One of the most influential of these organizations has been the G8, profiled by BBC News. It too, is showing its age and the need for it to be reformed.
Collective Action on Global Issues
In 1975, French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing suggested a meeting of heads of government would be a good idea. He invited the leaders of Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to take the work of the Library Group to the highest level. That was the start of the G6.
G6 Expands to G8
In 1976, Canada was invited to join the club whose only requirements were a massively large capitalist economy and a democratic system of government. For 20 years, these seven nations gathered and tried to arrange the world’s geopolitical agenda.
Two very big players on the world stage – China and the Soviet Union – remained outside the G7. Both countries had communist economic systems and both were dictatorships; hence, no membership cards.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and began to toy with capitalism and democracy. By 1997, Russia was judged to have sufficiently reformed itself to join the organization, making it the G8.
G8 Group Accused of being too Elitist
The group is an informal meeting of leaders. It does not have permanent offices or employees. Leaders may agree on policies and objectives but compliance is voluntary.
Originally, the group focused on economic issues, but political concerns have become increasingly important agenda items in recent years.
For a couple of days each year the G8 leaders gather in one of the member states and discuss the affairs of the world. The meetings have become lightning rods for public discontent.
Miki Yoshihito
As BBC News reports, “Critics of the G8 have accused the body of representing the interests of an elite group of industrialized nations, to the detriment of the needs of the wider world.”
Important Nations Missing from Group
In a leader just prior to the G8 meeting in Japan (July 5, 2008), The Economist was blunt. It called the G8 summit an occasion in which “Cigar smoke and ignorance are in the air.” The magazine asked what’s the point of “the group that allegedly runs the world” talking about important issues in the absence of those with major influence. It cited discussing:
- Oil prices without the world’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, at the table;
- The falling value of the U.S. dollar without China, which owns $800 billion worth of American debt;
- Placing sanctions on Zimbabwe because of dictator Robert Mugabe’s awful human rights record with no African present; and;
- “Global warming, AIDS, or inflation, without anybody from the emerging world.”
G8 Expands to Include Wider Views
The G8 has tried to answer the criticism that it’s an exclusive club. Representatives from a wider spectrum of the world’s population are invited to attend its meetings as observers but not as full participants.
Such countries as Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa are known as “outreach” states. But, even though consulted informally, they still feel left out.
Enter the G20, first proposed by former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in the
mid-
Then, along came the financial collapse of 2008, and the realization this was a problem too big for the small club to fix on its own. U.S. President George W. Bush asked the leaders of 20 countries to gather in Washington in November 2009.
As Jeffrey Simpson wrote in The Globe and Mail (November 2008), “It was, de facto, a kind of Group of 20, convened to discuss the world economic crisis whose epicentre is the U.S. under Mr. Bush’s catastrophic leadership.”
G20 Formally Launched in Pittsburgh
Now, the existence of the G20 has become more formalized. On September 24 and 25, 2009, the leaders of the 20 member states gathered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a summit.
This meeting marked the start of another attempt to create a functional group of nations that can deal realistically with the problems faced by the world.
Sources
“Profile: G8.” BBC News, June 26, 2010.
“What a Way to Run the World.” The Economist, July 3, 2008.
“Paul Martin Gets the last Laugh -
“Russia Odd Man out in the G8.” Mark Medish, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 24, 2006.
© Canada and the World, February 2011
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G8 ROTATING CHAIRMANSHIP
2006: Russia (St. Petersburg)
2005: U.K. (Gleneagles)
2004: U.S. (Sea Island)
2003: France (Evian)
2002: Canada (Kananaskis)
2001: Italy (Genoa)
G20 MEMBERSHIP
Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Indonesia
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Russia
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
South Korea
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
European Commission/Council
Leaders of the world’s two largest economies meet at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama.
White House Photo
“After ringing declarations on human rights and even the adoption by a UN world summit of a ‘responsibility to protect’ against genocide and crimes against humanity, the UN Security Council still finds itself unable to agree to do much to protect the people of Darfur, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and others from the murderous contempt of their rulers – just as in the 1990s the UN failed the genocide victims in Rwanda.”
The Economist
July 2008
MEMBERSHIPS QUESTIONED
Ever since Canada became a member of the G7 back in 1976 there have been quiet mutterings that it doesn’t really belong in such elevated company. The country’s economy is only the 14th largest in the world.
Similar questions are asked about Italy, whose share of the global economic pie has been getting smaller for quite some time. Although, at 10th, Italy still sits higher in the international league table than Canada.
On economic qualifications, Russia (sixth) clearly belongs in the elite club; however, its democratic credentials are pretty weak.
First as president and now as prime minister, Vladimir Putin has pulled control of the country almost entirely into his own hands.
In February 2006, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace checked off some
of the worrying aspects of Russian government behaviour: “the apparent rise of corrupt
state capitalism, the freeze of open media and civil society, the ongoing brutality
in and around Chechnya, the heavy-