The annual meeting of G8 nations holds a special place on the calendars of world leaders. It’s an opportunity to discard troublesome domestic concerns and fly to an exotic location for three days of ceremony and opulent rhetoric under the scrupulous watch of the international elite.
At this year’s meeting in L’Aquila, Italy the world leaders had substantially more distractions than in the usual tedium of 21st-century politics. Britain’s Gordon Brown faces a fractured Labour caucus and sinking approval ratings and will be lucky to keep his job after the next national election. Japan’s Taro Aso has just suffered a massive electoral defeat and is likely to be ousted by voters long before the next meeting of the G8. The summit’s host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is better known for his domestic disputes than his domestic agenda. Barack Obama, graced by the security of America’s fixed election dates, was perhaps the safest of the luminaries attending the meeting. But his ambitious agenda of health-care reform, stimulus spending, and financial regulation is a risky, all-or-nothing approach that will need to see big results if the Democrats are going to retain their current stranglehold on Congress. Finally, there was Stephen Harper, whose blundering escape from self-inflicted ruin is largely unknown at the international level, despite the stagnation of parliament that resulted from his efforts in the fall of 2008 to thwart coalition attempts on his office.
The summit’s delegates made the usual announcements: big money for compassionate causes like the environment and food aid to developing countries. While some praise Harper for his role in this spending, closer inspection finds that, once again, Canada’s government is far behind on both fronts. The meeting is useful for this reason: it allows world leaders to score points internationally while turning heads at home with illustrious talk of “helping those in need” and “saving the planet.” G8 summitry lacks substance.
Canada ranks seventh among the world’s most developed countries in terms of its environmental progressivism and overall climate policy according to a study by the World Wildlife Federation in 2008 (only Russia faired worse among G8 nations). When Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, we committed to reduce emissions by six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. Canada’s emissions have since risen by 25 per cent. And while countries at this year’s summit pledged to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, they failed to set interim goals or agree on a reference year for the target. What’s more, environment minister Jim Prentice was quick to was argue that the target for 2050 is merely an “aspirational goal” and not a binding agreement.
Such pronouncements amount to little more than hot air. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all met or exceeded their emission reduction targets, yet Canada’s emissions have dramatically increased. Is it because the Prime Minister comes from a body of political thinking that thinks global warming is an evil plot concocted by lefties to expand government bureaucracy? Is it because he’s built his grand conservative coalition using the old Western Reform base as a springboard? Or, is it because he knows that he’ll be lucky to keep his office next fall, let alone in 2050? All of the above.
The summit’s grandiose announcements on environmental policy were followed by a pledge to spend US$20 billion on agricultural development over the next three years to combat the global food crisis. This sounds generous, except that G8 countries have spent $9 billion on such development in the past year alone. Assuming they would continue to pledge the same amount, this latest announcement amounts to a reduction of $7 billion, if carried out over three years. Bravo, Mr. Harper.
Yet the piece de resistance came near the end of the conference when Harper took a moment to renew attacks on Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, quoting him as saying, “It is really important that Canada be on top [of things at the G8] because otherwise … somebody will come up with the idea of creating an entirely new group. A group that would certainly include key countries like China and India, but no particular reason why it would include Canada.” Ignatieff never uttered this quote, and it is not particularly offensive either, even when taken out of context. Yet Harper was quick to pounce: “Mr. Ignatieff is supposed to be a Canadian … I don’t think you go out and float ideas like this that are so obviously contrary to the country’s interest and no one else is advocating them … I don’t know where he’s getting this idea. Nobody, but Mr. Ignatieff, in the world has suggested excluding Canada from a meeting of major countries. Nobody.” After it emerged that the prime minister’s staff had mistakenly ascribed the quote to the Liberal leader, Mr. Harper apologized. But such behaviour is unacceptable. Attacking a domestic political opponent on the international stage is about as unprofessional as it gets, especially when your material is a quote from a scholarly discussion that you wrongly credited to an adversary.
Stephen Harper’s maliciousness towards his opponents is nothing new (his party’s attack ads spring to mind), but he has now taken to the kind of negative, anti-intellectualism waged by the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008, albeit on the international stage.
Once again, very little substance has emerged from the G8 summit. Babies were kissed, pronouncements were made, hands were shaken. The leaders of the world’s most powerful nations have returned home to mounting deficits and battered economies. In the case of Canada’s prime minister, he has returned looking weaker than when he left and will be very lucky to view next year’s summit in Huntsville, Ontario from anywhere but the sofa.
