Thank you very much for inviting us to appear before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to discuss issues related to next year's what is now both a G-8 and a G-20 meeting, which will be coming to Canada in June.
As Mr. Sorenson said, my name is Fraser Reilly-King and I am the coordinator of the Halifax Initiative, which is a coalition of development, environment, faith-based, human rights, and labour organizations. We have 19 members. We were founded 15 years ago, actually, when the G-7 summit came to Halifax in 1995.
Our activities since that point have focused on the policies and practice of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and export credit agencies. We endeavour to fill the shortfalls in their policies and their practice and make suggestions for filling those gaps.
Our organization is also a member of the 2010 Canadian G-8 Civil Society Coordinating Committee, which is responsible for developing the policy platform that all of you should have seen prior. And my colleague Amanda will be talking about that in a little more detail following me.
Before we get into discussing the chapeau document or the policy platform, I did want to provide a little bit of context for next year's summits, both the G-8 and the G-20 meetings, particularly with respect to the structures for governing the global economy.
As many of you are aware, over the past two years countries the world over have been battered by a series of interconnected and unrelenting crises of food, fuel, finance, and climate. No nation has gone unaffected, and the scale of each crisis is certainly one that no one could have anticipated, let alone imagined.
In response, global leaders, through the Group of 20 or G-20, have now met in Washington, in London, and just last month in Pittsburgh, to address many of these crises. Parallel to this, the United Nations has also initiated a process, pulling together a commission of experts made up of finance ministers, former finance ministers, central bank governors, and academics to put together a series of recommendations to inform a conference that took place last June in New York on the global economic and financial crisis.
Last month, as you would have seen in the news, leaders in Pittsburgh announced that the G-20 would become the premier forum for discussing global economic and financial issues. And importantly for Canada, at the time Prime Minister Harper also announced that next year when the G-8 comes to Canada, Canada would also be co-chairing with South Korea a G-20 summit that will take place at the same time as the G-8 meetings. For many, this development is seen as a positive and more inclusive step forward.
As you would have also heard, the countries of the G-20 boast 65% of the world's population and represent over 85% of global gross national product. A positive step forward from the G-8 is that the G-20 now brings to the table such emerging economies as South Africa, China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia, and a number of countries in the developing world.
But also importantly, the G-20 excludes 173 countries. There is not a single low-income or least-developed country in the pack, and not a single fragile state. The African Union is essentially shut out. And from that perspective we believe it's not entirely inclusive, nor legitimate or credible. Furthermore, the G-20, just like its predecessor the G-8, remains largely untransparent and unaccountable.
Therefore, at this tremendous moment of transition and change, we need to be extremely careful not to freeze this new institution and its membership into an historical moment in time. What I mean by this is that what works right now in 2009 we need to make sure works also in 2029 or 2059.
If you want an example of how things have fallen short on this front, just think of the UN Security Council. It spoke to a moment in time in 1945, but 60 or 65 years later the global economy has changed, and the world has changed.
What then? We come to next year's G-20. Canada, I feel, could play an incredibly important role, one of tremendous leadership, by initiating a process with other countries to transform the current structure of the G-20 into a forum that models democratic and transparent policy and decision-making and kickstarts a new era of multilateral cooperation.
We can get into more detail, if you want, on what this might look like. But what we really wanted to frame here were some of the principles that could guide the composition of that structure. To be pragmatic, we propose that it still be limited in size, but it should be representative in composition.
As I've hinted, a G-20 in principle isn't a bad idea. In past years, various entities have underscored the need for a council to help govern the global economy. The 1995 Commission on Global Governance, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, French President Jacques Chirac, and then more recently the UN Commission of Experts, which I referenced earlier, have all flagged such an idea. A forum of leaders, we would suggest, hand-picked by the powerful, who have no global or public credibility, is not sustainable. Such a forum should include possibly 20 to 29 countries and have representatives nominated by the members of regional multilateral bodies. The spokesperson would rotate on a periodic basis.
A second principle is that it would be inclusive of the poorest countries in the world. As I mentioned, it is positive that Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Turkey, and Indonesia are now at the table. But South Africa can't be expected, nor entrusted, to speak on behalf of 50 other countries in Africa, particularly since these countries it's representing have very different realities and needs from those of South Africa. They have very high debt loss, a narrower range of exports, weaker industrial bases, a larger rural population, greater dependence on external resources, such as aid, and weak governance and regulatory systems. Including these countries at the table necessarily informs the agenda and the broader solutions that need to be addressed.
By implementing the more representative forum outlined above, Canada would set the stage for addressing a more comprehensive agenda on global, economic, and social issues.
It's also important to provide voices for civil society at this new platform. Non-state actors in the past several decades have proven to be increasingly important players in multilateral organizations. Civil society analysis, proposals, and protests have positively impacted governments' understanding of the issues, methods of work, and policy agendas. Engaging civil society is key to the democratic process and has become a central element of a range of discussions within different fora. Formalizing a process for engaging civil society within the G-20 would be an important step forward. This can take the form of expert working groups, involving a range of stakeholders, that could make formal submissions to the G-20 for consideration. Or it could involve opening up Canadian consultation and parliamentary debate ahead of next year's meeting.
Transparency of process and accountability for decisions is the fourth principle we think should guide this new body. Ironically, the financial crisis, a crisis whose origins can be linked, in part, to a lack of transparency in financial institutions, has given birth to a new set of institutions that lack any transparency or accountability.
A leaders G-20 should publish agenda and background documents on public websites ahead of their meetings. It should also be a first step towards an effective and representative leaders summit process within the framework of the UN. It would strengthen the broader multilateral system and contribute its reports from G-20 discussions to the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council.
Without such changes, the G-20 rapidly risks losing credibility and legitimacy, just as it has found a renewed need for its existence. Strong Canadian leadership during this important period of transition could go a long way toward addressing that.
Thank you.
