Former prime minister Paul Martin got a lot of things right when he spoke at the annual conference of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo on the weekend. In fact, both Martin’s political friends and foes might agree that he touched on some very important truisms in his speech.
Martin stressed the importance of the G20 — the group of 20 major industrial countries. Martin, who had a major hand in creating this new political and economic structure, understands that the old world order dominated by the United States is now, well, really old. It’s gone.
Take a look at the changing numbers of this club. The group started as the G5 in the 1970s, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan. Then the club became the G7, adding Canada along with a middle-power European nation, Italy. With the decline of the Soviet empire, the G7 accepted Russia as a member, and the group became the G8.
Now, with the rising economic power of countries such as China, India and Brazil, the group has exploded into its current status as a 20-member organization. There is no doubt that economic power is now more widely spread than previously — perhaps ever.
Martin described the G20 as a “global steering committee,” and he wants it to rise to the challenge of ensuring a stable world economy. “It is not a small club of the self-interested,” he said.
That’s a noble statement. And Martin is certainly right in expressing the hope that the group can make decisions on a global basis. This goal, however, is easier to state than to achieve.
When forced to deal with serious problems, politicians often respond by thinking of the people for whom they feel directly responsible: the people who vote for them.
Martin said he would like nations to get beyond the concept of sovereignty and to understand the importance of protecting the financial security of all nations. The difficulty in the long term is going to be to ensure that leaders of national governments can transcend the boundaries on the maps and in their minds.
This subject has cropped up recently when the Americans started inserting Buy American clauses in their stimulus programs. Canadians become upset when American governments at various levels won’t buy Canadian goods when the price and quality are right. The problem, however, is that government purchases were excluded when Canada signed the free-trade deal.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pointed out that even though he personally does not like these protectionists policies they are quite legal. Canadian governments, in fact, may discriminate against American suppliers. Clearly, the federal and provincial governments are going to have to negotiate some new trade clauses with the Americans so that goods may cross the border more easily.
Martin is right that we should move toward a more global system, but, at the very least, we might start with a better system between Canada and our major trading partner.