Opinion: G7 confronts a new world order as Leaders Summit returns to Kananaskis
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As the G7 celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, its members face a volatile new world that threatens the global economic, military and social order of the past half-century, as current events challenge long-standing relationships at the heart of the group.
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In a world dealing with devastating wars, pandemic recovery and broader health, ecological, climate and other challenges, the attacks by U.S. President Donald Trump on the rules-based foundations of global stability and prosperity — from trade to national sovereignty — cast a long shadow over the summit.
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The leaders of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries will meet in Kananaskis in their first return to Alberta since the 2002 Kananaskis summit in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
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Now, as then, global stability and security are core issues for the G7, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and escalating military tensions in many other parts of the world. For Canada, resolving deadly and destructive conflicts is an immediate summit priority, but the issue of 'security' must go beyond militarism.
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Canada is a trading nation. Trade accounts for two-thirds of our national GDP and exports are critical. In Alberta, exports — led by energy and agriculture — accounted for 38 per cent of provincial GDP in 2023. The province contributes about 25 per cent of Canada's merchandise exports and a full 15 per cent of Canada's overall GDP.
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With Canada holding the G7 presidency in 2025 under new Prime Minister Mark Carney, military, economic and energy security are all prominent on the summit agenda.
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For Albertans, this summit is an opportunity to discuss how Alberta and Canada can contribute to continental and global energy and food security. Many also see an opportunity to build on our history of military contributions in the First and Second World War, more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions. We could encourage a new global energy security alliance among like-minded free-trade-supporting countries to co-ordinate energy and critical mineral needs and supply.
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The agenda for Kananaskis marks, in some ways, a return to the G7's early days in the 1970s, when the Middle East oil crisis first brought the major industrialized countries together to address an unprecedented energy-based global economic challenge.
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'It was pretty traumatic,' he says. Ryder was among an army of volunteers who helped rebuild trails, bridges and boardwalks, though many trails have permanently disappeared. 'In restoring K-Country, I think in a lot of ways, we restored ourselves,' he says. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2025.
