The Group of 20 (G20) was founded in 1999, with Paul Martin serving as the first chairman. The G20 has no permanent secretariat or headquarters. Its agreements are not legally binding but considerably influence bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. It was created in response to a series of financial crises in the 1990s — in Mexico, East and Southeast Asia, and Russia — that had significant global repercussions. The original mission focused on sovereign debt restructuring and promoting financial stability in the world economy. Today, the G20 discusses a wide range of issues, including trade, tourism, climate change, energy, economic growth, sustainability, among others.The attendees include the heads of state or government, their finance ministers, and other government officials. The chairmanship and the hosting country rotate. The host often invites guest countries and international organizations not part of the original group. This year’s summit was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 22 and 23, 2025..OLDCORN: ‘Singh Hortons’ has become a national disgrace, no longer ‘Canada’s coffee shop’.The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a gathering of world leaders at Davos, Switzerland, that develops policies and initiatives on global economics, sustainability, stakeholder capitalism, climate change, inequality, and social issues. The WEF maintains cooperation with the UN and advocates the UN’s Agenda 2030, promoting global governance reforms, public-private partnerships, addressing inequality, climate change, and other agenda items. The WEF and the G20 have significant overlap in areas of concern. Further, WEF developments often provide the basis for G20 discussions and agreements. Stakeholder capitalism is sold as a compassionate-based, environmentally friendly form of capitalism and is contrasted with shareholder capitalism. It uses the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework to evaluate corporations on their compliance, and financing is adjusted accordingly. Criticisms leveled against it include that a small group of unelected and unaccountable individuals forces corporations to comply with politically contested goals (for example: progressivism, policies that harm small companies, and net zero mandates) and picking winners and losers in the marketplace. It is also claimed that, in practice, it amounts to a form of crony capitalism, is fundamentally undemocratic, and provides poorer returns to investors. Support for ESG is declining..The G20, WEF, World Bank, and other international institutions are also strong promoters of public-private partnerships (PPPs). This model has been practiced by various governments around the world for several decades. It has been criticized as being a way for governments to exert significant influence on private business, a transfer of taxpayer money to corporations (and thus their executives and shareholders), is fundamentally undemocratic, increases corruption, and is usually more costly than free market approaches. Other major G20 agenda items are also criticized. Critics argue that the G20’s vision of “trade” remains rooted in the late-twentieth-century model of multilateral globalization — a model said to damage the middle class in many countries, disproportionately benefited multinational corporations, undermined national sovereignty, lacked transparency, and often involved backroom deals. The G20’s climate change and sustainability policies are similar in principle to the UN’s and WEF’s but tend to emphasize national and actionable approaches..BURTON: Ottawa, Alberta’s MOU hands BC a veto, Canada another missed opportunity.This year’s G20 Johannesburg summit was attended neither by President Trump nor any member of his administration. President Trump cited ongoing attacks on Afrikaners as the reason for the boycott. The US has prioritized refugee status for affected individuals. Given the close alignment of policy priorities among the G20, the UN, and the WEF, why would he attend? The president’s broader agenda — reordering global relations around bilateral trade deals, opposition to multilateral globalization, and a fundamental rethinking of long-standing positions on climate, sustainability, and governance — is in opposition to positions held by those organizations. President Trump had also requested that the summit refrain from issuing a unified declaration. This seems reasonable because the US, a founding member, was absent, making genuine consensus impossible. Breaking precedent, G20 members released a joint statement at the beginning of the summit rather than after their discussions, as had been the practice at all previous summits. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared, “We will not be bullied.” The summit ended reaffirming the global policy status quo.This was a regrettably undiplomatic approach to challenging the primarily 1990s status quo by the US. Surely an approach that emphasises détente would be far wiser. Nevertheless, this clearly exposes the deepening divide between those clinging to the elitist, globalized, multilateral framework and those confronting the profound changes the twenty-first century has brought. Although the G20 members may hope to nullify these shifts, most of the member countries have concluded — or are currently negotiating — bilateral agreements with the US. Mexico and Canada are party to the 2019 CUSMA (aka USMCA) agreement, which is scheduled for review in 2026. This agreement explains why Canadians have been shielded from the full impact of new US tariffs, which can only be applied to goods not covered by CUSMA. President Trump has already signaled that he is prepared to let this agreement lapse..Prime Minister Mark Carney should have been in his element at the Johannesburg summit. He helped write some of the WEF policies and was the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. Canada is the only G20 member that is neither actively negotiating a bilateral agreement nor has a trade agreement in place for goods and services beyond CUSMA with the US. The impact of this inaction by the prime minister is costing Canadian business and consumers dearly. Meanwhile, the prime minister flirts with the EU only to be told that Canada needs to pay 10 million euros (CAD $16,168,800) to join its EU’s defence program. On his recent trip to Asia, the prime minister seemed pleading for new trade with Asian countries and came back empty-handed. China thought it had the stronger “card” with rare earths. President Trump’s team all but neutralised that leverage, having found alternatives and driven the point home by reaching trade agreements for rare earths with Japan (signed deal) and five Southeast Asian countries (agreement to develop). After making these arrangements, he met with President Xi. How much more evidence does our prime minister need to wake up to the fact that clinging to the world of the 1990s is a lost cause?.PINDER: The West’s breaking point — how Canada’s emissions policies expose a rigged federation.Yes, Canada should pursue trade agreements with every country that is willing to sign one. The prime minister’s continued delays in engaging seriously with the US, our largest and closest trading partner, is simply foolish when the world’s biggest marketplace is next door. As I have stated before, the US does not need Canadian products; it already has or can find alternative sources. Canada would get a better deal and be in a stronger position to rebuild its struggling economy if it came to terms on a new bilateral agreement with the US before the CUSMA is reviewed in 2026.Dr. A.W. Barber is the former Director of Asian Studies at the University of Calgary. He is internationally active and has wide-ranging interests.
