Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney arrive in Calgary for the G7 meeting on Sunday.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
In Greenland, French President Emmanuel Macron used an official visit Sunday to condemn Donald Trump’s desire to annex the Arctic island. In Ottawa, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined with his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, to press for fair global trade and respect for sovereignty – both thinly veiled ripostes to Mr. Trump and his agenda of tariffs and territorial expansion.
As a group of the world’s most powerful leaders converged on Kananaskis, Alta., for this year’s G7 leaders’ summit, they came together in hopes of finding a common voice.
Ottawa has described the G7 as a place “for Canada and its allies to confront the challenges of our time, united in a common cause.” New conflicts have given fresh urgency to that task, including the increasingly destructive – and bloody – attacks between Israel and Iran.
Instead, the final hours before the summit sowed new seeds of discord between those seeking to preserve an international status quo and Mr. Trump, who is determined to rupture it.
“Conflict seems inevitable, on trade, sovereignty, Ukraine, Iran-Israel. The list isn’t short,” said Shawn Denstedt, an Alberta energy and resources lawyer who is emeritus chair of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.
Mr. Macron’s six-hour stop in Greenland, made en route to Canada, was a pointed message to Mr. Trump, one the French leader underscored by saying the U.S. threat to take ownership of Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, is not “what allies do.”
“Greenland is not to be sold, not to be taken,” Mr. Macron said.
Mr. Starmer and Mr. Carney, meanwhile, agreed to restart trade talks, saying they will “strengthen trade ties as trusted, reliable partners.” They made additional pledges to link arms on development of nuclear fusion, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.
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Canada and Britain are already close defence and intelligence allies through NATO and the Five Eyes, but the two countries said they intend to increase bilateral co-operation outside those bodies.
Ottawa, too, will seek to ratify the British accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership by this fall.
Since becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Carney has sought to broaden Canada’s partnerships with European countries, saying recently that it is “not smart” to maintain such a high degree of dependence upon the U.S. in national defence.
At the same time, Mr. Carney has his own reasons to seek a trade and security deal with Mr. Trump in Kananaskis.
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Those bilateral ambitions stand in contrast to the multilateralism that has been at the heart of the G7, although expectations have been low for this year’s summit.
“Miracles are not going to happen,” said Martha Hall Findlay, a former Liberal MP who is now director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. “I don’t think we’re going to expect everyone to sit around and sing kumbaya.”
She expects other leaders “to tread carefully with Donald Trump. He has made it clear in the past that if he feels like others are ganging up, he’s not going to be happy about it.”
But Sunday’s events made clear that other leaders are not prepared to allow Mr. Trump free rein.
The Britain-Canada meeting, for example, was an attempt “to present an image to the United States that the world trade system can go on outside the United States,” said John Manley, who held several senior cabinet posts when Jean Chrétien was prime minister.
“If they want to be excluded from that, that’s kind of their choice. But to be included in it, they have to play by the rules.”
The White House may dismiss some of the presummit actions as political posturing, such as Mr. Macron’s visit to Greenland.
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But it’s clear that Mr. Carney has a complicated task as G7 host. Trade is mentioned nowhere in the list of priorities he has set for the summit, and Canadian government officials have not committed to the signing of a communiqué, a traditional show of unity at the conclusion of a G7 meeting.
All the same, leaders arrived to the summit Sunday confronted by a slate of issues that continues to grow more pressing.
“This is the opportune moment for world leaders to have conversations about Ukraine, about peace in the Middle East, about defence and security globally, about economic multilateralism and beyond,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Sunday.
It all adds to the burden for Canadian leadership, confronted with the possibility of conflict between countries with competing interests – and a pressing need to seek solutions.
“More than anything, Prime Minister Carney’s mission is to bring these different governments together,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer who was the lead U.S. G7 negotiator during Mr. Trump’s first term. “It’s up to Canada to try to steer this ship in a way that finds more common ground than differences.”