J.D.M. Stewart: A quick (and eventful) history of Canada hosting the G7

It seems like only yesterday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was welcoming world leaders to Charlevoix, Quebec, for the 44th Group of Seven (G7) Summit. But before the ink had even dried on the summit communiqué, United States President Donald Trump was tweeting from Air Force One that Trudeau was “very dishonest and weak.”

That was seven years ago. In politics and summitry, that is a lifetime. Gone since the confab in La Malbaie are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, who was assassinated in 2022. Trudeau resigned earlier this year. The only two leaders who can reminisce about 2018 when the G7 meets in Kananaskis, Alberta, this weekend will be French President Emmanuel Macron and, somewhat ironically, Trump.

The Kananaskis G7 summit marks the seventh time Canada has hosted. Below are thumbnail sketches of the country’s history welcoming the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—and sometimes Russia.

Montebello, Quebec, 1981

If two things define the G7, they are that the world will always present incredible challenges for its leaders to grapple with and that finding meaningful solutions will be evasive. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau put it well in 1981 when Canada hosted the summit for the first time in its history.

The presidents and prime ministers, he said, are just trying “to understand where the devil the world is going.” A look back at G7 summits also shows how the more things change, the more they remain the same. At the famous log cabin resort, where Trudeau, eschewing protocol, greeted the likes of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in casual attire wearing an open shirt sans cravate, violence in the Middle East and growing tension between the Communist East and capitalist West (ie. the United States and the Soviet Union) dominated the agenda.

Even though Reagan was just six months into his first term, there was already plenty of chatter about him not being one for details. “I think it is fair to say,” remembered Trudeau in his memoir, “that Reagan could be pleasant company for social conversation but was not a man for thoughtful policy discussion.” Hosting the summit cost $10 million.

Toronto, 1988 

In hot June weather (35 degrees celsius on day two) Prime Minister Brian Mulroney greeted world leaders at this G7 where agricultural subsidies were a hot topic, as was arms control, free trade, stiffening sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, the war on drugs, and aid for the poorest countries in “sub-Saharan” Africa. Security was heavy. Large anti-summit protests on University Ave. resulted in the arrest of 137 people, some of whom threw large caricatures of world leaders onto a bonfire. They hoped to make citizens’ arrests of Reagan and Thatcher for nuclear contamination and the general mayhem they feel the leaders inflicted upon the world.

By the end, the leaders claimed success. And Reagan, in a speech to the Empire Club at the Royal York Hotel, told the audience that “On a performance rating of one to 10, your prime minister, in my books, gets an 11.”

Another thing: media coverage has changed. The Toronto Star had an eight-page pullout section on what had transpired, in addition to its regular coverage already in the paper.

Halifax, 1995

For the first time, the G7 had a website, and the Globe and Mail proudly trumpeted that all of its coverage could be found online. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien dubbed it the “Chevrolet Summit” to reflect its goal of being less ostentatious and expensive than previous summits had been in Naples and Tokyo. Conflict in Bosnia, reducing trade barriers, monitoring world currencies, and addressing youth unemployment were on the agenda in the Nova Scotia capital, but the final communiqué was vague enough to paper over the lack of agreement among the seven leaders.

Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president, attended for the final 36 hours (at Chrétien’s invitation) and was mesmerized by the Cirque du Soleil. An “obviously inebriated” Yeltsin tried to join some of the Russian acrobats, Chrétien recalled in his memoirs, “but found he was too tired to climb onto the stage.” A Globe headline afterward captured the essence of Halifax and many meetings of the G7: “More issues were ducked than resolved.”

Kananaskis, Alberta, 2002

This year is not the first time the G7 has come to this beautiful mountain town just over an hour’s drive west of Calgary. One of the reasons for its popularity is the relative ease of securing the site. That meant something, especially for the first summit since 9/11.

Chrétien played host to his second summit (the only prime minister to host twice) and welcomed the likes of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. Every leader was given a white Stetson upon arrival, but only French President Jacques Chirac refused to wear it.

Anti-terrorism efforts, particularly around transportation, were a key issue. Decommissioning Russia’s nuclear stockpile involved negotiating with President Vladimir Putin, whose country the G7 officially welcomed to the fold (in 2014, it would be expelled for annexing Crimea). Chrétien succeeded in putting Africa at the forefront of the agenda, but he got less than he wanted in the final communiqué.

Muskoka, Ontario, 2010

Huntsville got a $50 million makeover, and world leaders, from President Barack Obama of the United States to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, were shuttled into cottage country by helicopter for the G8 meeting. Prime Minister Stephen Harper secured a $5 billion aid package for maternal health, with Canada paying a leading share of the bill. The world’s leaders also admonished Iran and North Korea for their work on developing nuclear weapons. Another issue was how quickly the G8 nations should unwind their deficit spending after the global recession of 2008-2009.

What happened in Muskoka, however, was overshadowed by the G20 Summit that immediately followed it in Toronto. Police and protestors clashed violently, and the Toronto Police Service eventually settled a class action lawsuit brought against it for $16.5 million. The $1 billion security cost for the combined summits was a long way from Montebello.

Charlevoix, Quebec, 2018

Before Trump’s tweets, the G7 had discussed the rules-based international order, girls’ education, Russian aggression, and climate change. All of it was agreed to for the communiqué before the social media posts from Air Force One.

There had also been plenty of talk about U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, and Trump advocated for the return of Russia to the G7 fold. A remarkable photo of Merkel facing a defiant Trump became a sensation–and one that captured the zeitgeist. Plus ça change…

Now what?

Kananaskis 2025 awaits, but Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star gave a wonderful description of these meetings in 1988: “Summits have come to resemble those fish that inflate themselves to frighten predators, but do so at the risk of blowing themselves up.”