Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to great lengths to keep control of the G20 summit agenda in the face of unexpected global economic tremors and political jockeying over a bank tax.
Five months ago, Harper was positioning the G20 conference in Toronto in June as a chance for world leaders to talk about how to reshape the international economy after the recession is over.
But the financial crisis prompted by Greece’s near-default has stirred widespread alarm about the vulnerability of debt-laden countries. This aura of crisis is unlikely to have abated by next month, meaning that G20 leaders will have to focus in Toronto on avoiding a double-dip recession rather than post-recovery economic goals.
"The most recent difficulties in Europe remind us of the need to be cautious about seeking entrenched economic recovery," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, speaking in India on Tuesday, said of the global situation.
Harper has dispatched five senior cabinet ministers around the world to shape the issues that will dominate the talks at this summer’s two summits. On June 25-26, in Huntsville, he sits down with U.S. President Obama and leaders from Europe, Japan and Russia under the banner of the G8 group of nations.
On June 27 in Toronto, Harper convenes the G20, which includes the G8 plus leaders of newly developed economies such as China, India and Brazil.
Harper’s ministers used up a lot of rhetoric Tuesday knocking down a proposal for a new bank levy among G20 countries.
But, despite support for such a "Robin Hood" measure in Europe and, to a lesser extent, at the White House, there is no indication of a G20 consensus on a levy designed to set aside cash to keep taxpayers off the hook for future bank bailouts.
In a telephone press conference from Mumbai, Flaherty said a "significant number" of G20 countries are opposed to a bank tax.
Besides Canada, Australia, Japan and Russia are believed to be against the idea.
"So quite frankly it’s an idea that is not going to obtain the kind of universal support that perhaps some thought it would obtain," the finance minister said.
With the summits only six weeks away, though, it appears the Harper government is determined to ensure the bank tax issue is off the table entirely so that it does not become a "distraction," as Flaherty called it Tuesday.
Canada is pushing a more market-oriented alternative in which banks could issue debt that could be used as equity if a bank got into financial trouble -- thus avoiding the need for a government bailout.
Liberal finance critic John McCallum said the high-profile offensive against the bank tax was a smokescreen.
"Momentum for a global bank tax is already waning," McCallum commented. "The current 'effort' from the Conservatives is another diversion, as they want to claim victory over an issue that is already settled."
He said in the run-up to the summits, the Conservatives are using the bank levy issue to distract attention from other controversies.
As the centerpiece of the G8 summit, Harper has outlined an initiative to improve maternal health in poorer nations. But the much-vaunted proposal has been badly tarnished by widespread objections to the Conservatives’ refusal to fund safer abortions in developing countries as part of the aid plan.
The Canadian government has also been criticized -- by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, among others -- for not making addressing climate change a priority at the upcoming summits.
Everything but the economy amounts to "sideshows" at these meetings, Harper says.
In its pre-summit international publicity campaign Tuesday, Conservative cabinet ministers also stressed the need to hold back trade protectionism, promote tighter regulation of banks and stock markets in G20 countries and rigorously reduce debt financing by governments.
While Flaherty spoke in India, Treasury Board President Stockwell Day was in Shanghai and Trade Minister Peter Van Loan addressed business people in Washington, D.C. Industry Minister Tony Clement and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon held a press conference Ottawa.
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