From bear traps to camped-out soldiers, security measures in place for G7 in Kananaskis
Starting Sunday, seven of the most powerful people in the world will be at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., where they will discuss economic instability and security issues, including Russia's war on Ukraine.
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Unsurprisingly, to bring the most powerful people in the world together, even at the best of times — and this is not the best of times — necessitates a massive security operation, with coordination across multiple Canadian agencies.
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'(Security) is both massive and essential,' said John Kirton, the director of the G7 Research Project at the University of Toronto.
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While Canadians are perhaps unlikely to have wildly strong views about French President Emmanuel Macron or Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, U.S. President Donald Trump has angered millions of Canadians with his aggressive rhetoric. Prime Minister Mark Carney has also angered many by inviting Saudia Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman and India's Narendra Modi.
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Already, unspecified security concerns have led to at least one ceremonial casualty: Calgary's White Hatter ceremony. Traditionally, the ceremony welcomes delegates to Alberta's largest city, and they're handed a white Smithbilt cowboy hat to celebrate Calgary's frontier spirit.
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In 2002, when the G8 Summit was also held in Kananaskis, leaders were given the ceremonial hats. U.S. president George W. Bush put it on his head, but Jacques Chirac, the late French president, reportedly turned up his nose at the gift and Russian President Vladimir Putin — not yet the international pariah he is today — examined the hat without putting it on his head. This time, however, there will be no ceremony.
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'We have to respect that security considerations today are very different from the last time we hosted the summit in 2002 … there's been a lot of nostalgia about what we were able to do in 2002,' said Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek earlier this week.
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In 2002, a bear also died after falling from a tree as security officials were trying to scare it away from delegates. This year's security team has a bear trap, should a curious bear get too close to the humans in the region.
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The meeting, last held in Canada in Charlevoix, Quebec, in 2018, will happen against the backdrop of a global economic reorientation. Under Trump, the United States has initiated an international tariff war, breaking down decades of movement towards free trade. Meanwhile, Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been invited to the conference — and Israel's war on Hamas continues to destabilize the Middle East.
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For the leaders at the G7, there are a number of security concerns, said Kirton: The first is that Trump survived an assassination attempt in July 2024, so there are general concerns about the safety of attendees. The second is that three leaders — France's Macron, the U.K.'s Keir Starmer and the U.S.'s Trump — need to have staff on hand with the nuclear football in case of nuclear war. (None of the other powers at the G7, unless Modi attends, head countries with nuclear weapons.) There's also the risk of violence or a terror attack or the possibility that a protest will get out of hand, such as in Genoa, Italy in 2001, when more than 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets. Additionally, unlike in Kananaskis in 2002 or Genoa in 2001, there are drones, which can be easily manipulated from afar.
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