FAIT Committee Report

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION: ACTION TOWARDS A
MORE EFFECTIVE AND PARTICIPATORY G8 PROCESS

We came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. We are each responsible for the government of an open and democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere.

Communiqué of the first Group of Seven Summit, Rambouillet,
France, 1975¹⁷⁴

WHAT CANADIANS TOLD US

Governance and Democratic Accountability: Some Issues for the G8

        While Professor John Kirton has argued that G7 summits were "conceived and created as a democratic concert", and that "G7/8 governance was from the start a public exercise, rather than an effort to practice democracy in private,"¹⁷⁶ it is apparent from the testimony received by the Committee that many Canadians are sceptical of its structure, mandate, and processes. We welcomed the statement made by Ambassador Fowler, the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative for the Summit, in opening our public hearings that these will be "critical to preparing the Prime Minister for the Summit, to engaging Canadians in a real discussion of the global challenges the G8 will address, and to facilitating the peaceful expression of views". Official statements by G8 leaders and ministers have also increasingly acknowledged the need for encouraging more constructive citizen engagement around globalization issues, and for demonstrating greater openness and transparency. At the same time, those promises are clearly not enough to satisfy the criticisms and expectations of many activist constituencies, or to overcome more general complaints about the perceived inadequacies of public consultation efforts to date.¹⁷⁷

        The Committee regrets that part of its hearings outside Ottawa were delayed and that circumstances of advance notice and publicity may sometimes have been less than ideal. But we believe it was important to have travelled to every region, and to have had the benefit of hearing directly from not just a few experts and heads of national organizations, but also individuals and volunteers, passionately concerned citizens, who were not afraid to speak their minds. We trust that this rich public record will also inform the Government’s deliberations on how to bring improvements to the Summit process.

        Indeed, if there is something on which even former G7/G8 "sherpas," academic supporters of the process, and the G8’s fiercest critics may be agreed, it is that issues of governance, democratic reform, and real accountability for realistic outcomes cannot be sidestepped or avoided, whatever the format for this year’s summit or future summits. Choosing a relatively remote site for the Kananaskis Summit, perhaps attractive in light of security dilemmas, cannot mean that G8 processes give the appearance of being in retreat, defensively insular and remote from citizens’ concerns. Credible reform of the G8 will have to embrace the challenges of summitry in an age marked by global insecurities of all kinds. And it must find ways, including through utilizing 21st century information and communications technologies, of reducing meetings’ costs and, more importantly, democratic deficits. As John Kirton cautions: "The understandable instinct to retreat to a small, ultra secure secret Summit, separated from civil society, is now in danger of leading the G8 into making a major mistake. … Instead, better and more innovative ways must be found to connect with civil society and, through the media, with citizens throughout the G8 and around the world."¹⁷⁸

        Some submissions included suggestions for introducing more instruments of voice and accountability (both in terms of democratic public trust and international law obligations) into G8 decision-making. Several representatives of labour groups advocated formal consultations with domestic and international trade union associations. Henri Massé, President of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, argued that this would be one way for Canada to break new ground in terms of demonstrating openness to participation by citizens and their representatives. NGO spokespersons also pointed to the kinds of access, such as formal observer status, they now regularly enjoy in relation to United Nations organizations and conferences. Gordon Smith, a former DFAIT deputy minister and sherpa, who now heads the University of Victoria’s Centre for Global Studies, congratulated the Committee for asking critical questions about future governance issues and referred to several reports done by his Centre that look ahead to "best practices to increase transparency, participation, and accountability" in international institutions.¹⁷⁹ He also called for exploration of innovative ways to involve more non-state actors, while reaching beyond elites (including those of civil society organizations). And he took the view that "Canada is a natural leader in this area", whereas the United States is not likely to be. Hence: "I think this provides us with the kind of opportunity that historically we have had and, I would hope, that we will play a leading role in that regard."¹⁸⁰

        Given Canada’s tradition of multilateral diplomacy, the Committee shares that expectation, and we feel confident that our former Chair, now Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham, under whose leadership this study was begun, will agree. John Kirton testified in Toronto on May 7 that G8 foreign ministers should be meeting at least as frequently as G7 finance ministers, which may be a further avenue for Canada to exercise international leadership on urgent matters of the day such as the crisis in the Middle East. As Canada’s leading expert on the G8, Professor Kirton also provided the Committee with a useful menu of things for the G8 to consider leading up to Kananaskis and beyond, inter alia¹⁸¹:

• developing a coordinated and enhanced information strategy that recognizes "transparency is a basic democratic duty";

• reaching out through public education vehicles which are multilingual and take advantage of electronic media possibilities;

• putting parliamentarians into the process (about which more below);

• generating G8 study centres and scholarship programs;

• making better use of media coverage of summits;¹⁸²

• coming up with summit communiqués that are clear, comprehensible to the average citizen, incorporate action-oriented targets with specific timetables, and are honest about both past performance and current promises;

• inviting civil society into the summit process itself.

        In regard to the last crucial point, Kirton argues that "a multi-stakeholder civil society forum, led by and involving parliamentarians, could meet simultaneously with the leaders, or, with minimal overlap, just prior to and at the start of the summit … Whatever the precise formula, the media and the leaders interested in civil society views would have something to report on and to respond to other than those shouting slogans on the streets outside. An important part of this innovation would be for the G8 leaders collectively, and not just the host leader or others at their individual discretion, to meet with the leaders of the civil society forum."

        Immediately prior to the Kananaskis Summit, there will in fact be an alternative "People’s Summit" on the campus of the University of Calgary under the banner of the "G6B", standing for "Group of 6 Billion."¹⁸³ According to the written submission of Amnesty International, recommendations in a range of global governance areas are being developed through the G6B process, and they asked the Committee to "press the Canadian government to provide a means for the final recommendations of the G6B, along with other views from civil society gathered at the time of the Summit, to be received by the official Summit."¹⁸⁴ In the Committee’s subsequent hearings in Calgary, Randy Rudolph, co-chair of the G6B conference education session, indicated that discussions have been taking place with Ambassador Fowler on "a mechanism to present our findings to him, our conference summaries, and our recommendations," with encouraging signs that these will be fed into the Summit process itself.¹⁸⁵

        Finally, the Committee observes that the expression of civil society views must above all work through their duly elected representatives. As renowned international relations scholar Joseph Nye told us, while other structures of global democracy may emerge in the future, at this stage within the national political communities that sustain democratic action: "Parliamentarians are the elected representatives of the people. I think having parliamentarians have more contact internationally with other elected representatives is the first important step in the direction that you desire to go in reducing the democratic deficit. I’m in favour of NGOs. They do many good things. NGOs are no substitute for elected parliamentarians."¹⁸⁶

        John Kirton argues that the time has arrived for parliamentary democracy at the G8 level, observing that: "As the Summit of the Americas and the G7/8 systems are, for Canada and the United States, the only genuine international institutions centred on institutionalized plurilateral summitry where the participants are all democratically and popularly elected leaders, it is clear that the G8 should join the Americas in bringing parliamentarians into the process in an organized way." He suggests that "the case for the G8 and its core agenda is now sufficiently compelling in the mind of the average voter that the moment to launch a G8 Interparliamentary Group has come."

        Referring to this Committee’s 1999 pre-Seattle cross-country hearings on the WTO agenda — in relation to which, post-Doha, the Committee has recently reiterated its call for creating a "permanent WTO parliamentary mechanism"¹⁸⁷ — and now on the G8 summit agenda this year, Professor Kirton suggests that similar efforts could be encouraged in other G8 countries, with the results (such as this report) brought together at a G8 interparliamentary gathering and then passed on to leaders at a timely moment prior to future summits. In Kirton’s view, this could still be possible up to the eve of Kananaskis. He proposes that Canada host an inaugural G8 interparliamentary meeting, with the September 2002 meeting in Canada of the speakers of G8 legislatures possibly serving "as a launching point for a G8 interparliamentary group."¹⁸⁸

        The Committee emphatically agrees that civil society, including parliamentary, input into G8 deliberative and decision-making processes must not only become a permanent ongoing feature of these international governance arrangements, but must move in imaginative, accessible, and affordable directions that promote peaceful, productive participation by citizens and their elected representatives. Use of increasingly widespread interactive communications technologies — perhaps leading to the setting up of a G8 public outreach "virtual forum" and/or a G8 "virtual parliament" network — might be among the ideas to consider. While the Committee does not claim to have the answers, questions about more fundamental changes must be addressed by G8 leaders. There would of course be a cost to making the G8 more inclusive. But it would surely not be hundreds of millions of dollars. And such democratizing innovations might over time mitigate what, faute de mieux, has become an often counterproductive spotlight on brief high-profile leaders-only events that, as increasingly costly, contested, and security-obsessed affairs, are in danger of collapsing under the weight of their own management challenges and misgivings.

        In sum, it is time for the G8 to consider changes in the ways that it carries out the public’s business in order, not only to secure its own future as a valuable instrument of multilateral governance that can work democratically and transparently, but to secure real accountable progress on collective public policy goals — for the benefit of its own citizens, those in other less fortunate regions notably in Africa — and ultimately overall, a better world for future generations.

Recommendation 20

Canada should lead in proposing to G8 Summit leaders at Kananaskis a task force on G8 reform which would look at options for expanding democratic public access while reducing summit costs and would make recommendations in time for action prior to the next summit. Particular attention in the task force’s mandate should be paid to improving the G8’s transparency and communications; enlarging participation by parliamentarians and non-state actors; measuring effectiveness in terms of actual performance; and, returning back full circle to Recommendation 1, providing a regular public mechanism of accountability for summit outcomes.

In addition, the Committee urges the Government to support the idea of holding an inaugural meeting of G8 parliamentarians in connection with the Kananaskis Summit, leading to the subsequent setting up of a G8 Interparliamentary Group that would be invited to submit recommendations directly to future summits.