Canada to host 'transition' summit in 2010

Harper announces Canada will play host to what amounts to two back-to-back summits next year, marking shift from wealthy nations club to broader group of major developing power
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada will host a transition summit next year – technically two summits back to back – that will mark the shift of power from a club of wealthy nations to the major developing powers like China, India, and Brazil.

Canada will still host a G8 summit in Muskoka next June, but a broader club, the Group of 20, is now officially superseding it as the world's major economic forum, so a G20 summit will tacked alongside it. Officials said the G20 is also expected to be in and around Muskoka, but it's not clear if it will be before or after the G8.

“We are seeing changes to accept the realities of the whole world,” Mr. Harper told reporters at a press conference Friday morning.

The decision to make the G20 the real power club was formalized at a dinner of G20 leaders at their summit in Pittsburgh last night. But efforts to hash out the transition, including strenuous opposition from G8 member Italy, have been discussed for some time.

South Korea was to host the next G20 summit in April; but because of the transition from G8 to G20, and two summits piling up in quick succession, that has been postponed to November. Mr. Harper asked South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to co-chair the G-20 portion of the summit in Canada, in return for his co-operation in changing the summit schedule so Canada's G8 did not be the last hurrah of a near-defunct club.

Mr. Harper insisted that the G8 will still continue, but with a more limited and still-unclear mandate, which he suggested might centre on international-security issues and development aid. But the G8 forum's importance is now a shadow, and it is not clear how long U.S. presidents will want to continue them, given the proliferation of international summits.

The G20 Leaders Summit idea had been pushed heavily by Canada, especially by former prime minister Paul Martin, but then-President George W. Bush was long against it. Mr. Harper was cool to the idea after he took power, but the global financial crisis convinced Mr. Bush to convene the first-ever G20 leaders summit last year.

It has managed to convene summits in Washington and London that responded to the global economic crisis with massive global stimulus spending – a common commitments by leaders representing 85 per cent of the world's gross domestic product – and a trillion-dollar development funding package.