Civil society’s invitation must have been lost in the mail.
CTV reports that, “In partnership with the government, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) is co-coordinating and hosting a G20 business summit – dubbed the B20 – that will begin on the eve of the June 26-27 leaders’ summit in Toronto.”
“Former finance minister and deputy prime minister John Manley, who is now chief executive officer of the CCCE, and Perrin Beatty, head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, will be representing this country along with four Canadian CEOs who have yet to be named, according to people familiar with the meeting. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has written the other Group of 20 leaders to tell them about the B20, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has asked each of his counterparts to send two top business leaders to the gathering. The global CEOs will make themselves available June 26 to questions from the G20 finance ministers, who are expected to tap them for information on subjects ranging from hiring intentions and investment plans to potential consequences from the financial instability in Europe. The finance ministers will effectively be seeking the most current economic and industry data, in addition to advice. And the advice will flow in both directions.”
WHAT WILL BE ON THE AGENDA?
The CTV report adds, “While the business minds who descend on Toronto are expected to be a sounding board for G20 finance ministers, they will also have an opportunity to air their own concerns. The foreign business leaders are also expected to face pressure from the Canadian business delegation on issues that business leaders and politicians in this country want to put at the top of the global agenda, including fears about protectionism and a global bank tax. On the latter, the argument will be that such a tax would ultimately be passed on to consumers, and that Canadians should not be paying the price for the mistakes of foreign banks.”
According to a press release by the Ministry of Finance, the B20 will include roundtable discussions and direct exchanges between business leaders and G20 finance ministers. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in that release, “It is my hope that the business summit will not only inform discussions by G20 leaders, but enable business to play an active role in finding practical solutions to the global challenges we all face.”
In a May 19 speech to the Empire Club in Toronto, Manley stated, “With governments stretched to the limit, the responsibility for investment, growth and job creation now falls more heavily on the private sector. We need to ensure that public policy in Canada and elsewhere enables that growth. We need to oppose protectionism whenever and wherever it arises, and renew the push for multilateral and regional trade liberalization. We need to reform the international financial regulatory framework in ways that encourage the prudent management of risk, instead of imposing new rules that fail to address the causes of the global credit crisis. In particular, as the Government of Canada is proposing within the G20, we should be ensuring that financial institutions maintain levels of capital sufficient to prevent future failures, rather than levying a new global tax to pay for the bailouts of institutions that take excessive risk. All of these issues will be on the agenda of next month’s G20 Business Summit, and my colleagues and I are committed to offering practical, constructive advice to the leaders of the G20 nations.”
And with the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy at the G20 and B20 meetings, it’s important to note what Manley had to say in that same speech about the Canada-EU trade deal. He said, “The CCCE has taken the lead within the private sector by strongly supporting the current negotiations toward a new economic partnership with the European Union. This is, without a doubt, the most significant trade initiative that Canada has undertaken since the early 1990s, and it is the first time ever that the EU has negotiated such a deal with a developed country. If we succeed, Canada will enjoy the benefit of being both a member of NAFTA and a privileged partner of the EU, the world’s largest single market and biggest investor.”
THE G8/G20 IS THE ANTITHESIS OF WHAT WE WANT
An April 21 campaign blog written at the climate conference in Bolivia – ‘UPDATE: The G8 is the antithesis of the Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos’ – noted that as a Canadian it defies imagination to picture a participatory conference on climate change being convened by our government, whether Conservative or Liberal. Not only has the Harper government been an obstacle to meaningful climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, it is presently engaged in organizing the antithesis of la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos, that being the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario this June.
The G20 is an undemocratic institution that is committed to a ‘business as usual’ agenda rather than climate, water and trade justice. Rather than seeking ways to engage the peoples of the world, millions (we now know more than a billion) will be spent on security measures to keep people as far away as possible from the Metro Convention Centre in Toronto. This is a profoundly different approach than the climate conference in Bolivia where tens of thousands of people gathered together from 126 countries to engage in a dialogue with representatives of at least 70 governments.
The CTV report is at http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article1586325.html. The campaign blog is at http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=3375.
