UPDATED: Next G7 Summit to be held in Kananaskis

Twice is a charm.That’s because Kananaskis will be the site of the next G7 summit of the world’s largest economies next year.And assuming there is no federal election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will play host. Kananaskis was previously the site of the 2002 summit owing to its remote location, away from protestors. Trudeau is presently in Apulia, Italy for this year’s event where leaders agreed to a new deal to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine defend itself following Russian gains on the battlefield. Canada has agreed to contribute $5 billion as part of the plan..The last two G7 summits Canada hosted were marked by controversy.Then-U.S. President Donald Trump left the 2018 meeting in Charlevoix, Que. early to attend a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump also tweeted that he was instructing his officials to withdraw support for an agreed upon communique before it was even signed owing to what he called Trudeau’s “treachery.”The government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was also on the defence during the 2010 meeting in Muskoka, ON over a $2 million exhibit at the summit's media centre, which featured an artificial indoor pool to simulate Ontario's cottage country..The 2002 meeting, hosted by former prime minister Jean Chrétien, was unique in that it was actually a ‘G8’ meeting, including a visit by Russia’s Vladimir Putin.Although exact figures weren’t disclosed, the three-day gathering was reported to have cost $300 million.In attendance were George W. Bush, England’s Tony Blair, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In the summit's final communique, one of the unexpected highlights was an announcement that Russia would become a true full member of the G8.Significantly, Putin was the first world leader to send W. Bush his “sincere condolences,” and to intimate that “the entire international community must rally against terrorism.It coincided with a wave of anti-globalization protests that were taking place around the globe and was the first international summit to be held after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.Thus, Kananaskis was selected because of its isolated location. Security was augmented by CF-18 jet fighters, air-to-air refuelling aircraft and helicopters which patrolled the skies non-stop; all major thoroughfares were closed, many of the shops in nearby Calgary were boarded up, and police reportedly outnumbered protesters six to one. At the time, it was the largest peacetime security operation in Canadian history.