Canada’s top security officials are ramping up planning in Kananaskis, just west of Calgary, for the 51st G7 leaders’ summit in June, more than two decades after the region last held the high-profile international event.
Officials behind this year’s summit are keeping specifics scant for now, with more detail to come. But as is the case with all G7 summits, the host site — in this case, a popular wilderness destination — is set to be locked down as part of a dramatic and sweeping security effort.
Beyond the extensive security measures, G7 events also carry significant financial costs. The last time Kananaskis hosted the summit, its price tag was estimated at $300 million. Canada last hosted the summit in La Malbaie, Que., in 2018, when it budgeted $600 million.
The return of the event to K-Country brings back memories of the last time it was held — a contentious summit with a ballooning budget, unprecedented security and calls for its cancellation.
The 2025 event will bring together leaders from the United States, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada, as well as the European Union, and take place from June 15 to 17.
The last time Kananaskis hosted, the conference was known as the G8 Summit. The name was changed after Russia was suspended and then withdrew following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Massive security effort
In advance of the 2002 summit, then-prime minister Jean Chretien suggested the intimate, remote nature of Kananaskis made it an ideal location for the event, especially in light of massive protests at the 27th G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, the year prior, which drew an estimated 200,000 demonstrators.
“We have the obligation to meet, and it is not a certain number of anarchists who will prevent democratic leaders to do their job,” Chretien was quoted as saying by the Edmonton Journal in July 2001.
The 2002 summit also landed amid high anxiety tied to the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. In the days following those attacks, organizers said “profound” changes would be made to security planning, and a possible change in venue from Kananaskis.
Then-premier Ralph Klein floated the idea the summit may need to be cancelled should security concerns persist.
For Calgary officials, planning efforts began about a year in advance, though Global Affairs Canada, RCMP, CSIS and others were involved well before that, said Al Duerr, who was Calgary’s mayor when Kananaskis was chosen as the summit site in July 2001.
“Definitely, at that time, we had to plan for the worst case,” Duerr said in an interview earlier this month.
Duerr decided not to run again in the fall of 2001 after four terms in office, and was succeeded as mayor by Dave Bronconnier, who would go on to lead the region into the summit. But Duerr said there was extensive information shared in the lead-up to the event.
“Not only do you have issues with potential bad actors, but you have wildlife, and a whole series of things,” he said. “I can’t get into a lot of the stuff that was planned, but I was very impressed by the depth to which everyone went to ensure it went off as a very smooth event.”
As the summit approached, the Calgary Herald described the affected section of K-Country as a “fortress” sealed off from the public. Estimates stated that more than 5,000 soldiers and 1,500 RCMP officers would be deployed in K-Country.
Jet fighters patrolled a no-fly zone over the summit. In the city, 450 of Calgary’s 1,400-odd city police officers were on dedicated G8 duty, in what was referred to as the largest security operation in Canadian peacetime history. Among their tasks were responsibilities to secure key summit sites, and to surveil protest groups.
The impacts of the summit spread across Calgary. The city’s public schools practised lockdown procedures, while some offices were closed and some stores boarded up.
Fearing a repeat on Calgary streets of the violent confrontations in Italy the year prior, first-term mayor Bronconnier warned protesters against such actions, lest they spend the rest of the summit at the Spy Hill jail.
In the end, the street protests in Calgary were largely peaceful, and Bronconnier hailed the massive security precautions as having paid off.
This year, the RCMP will lead the Integrated Safety and Security Group (ISSG), which will include the Calgary Police Service, the Alberta Sheriffs Branch, Alberta Conservation officers and the Canadian Armed Forces.
“The Integrated Safety and Security Group are scheduling various local information sessions with specific stakeholders that will be most affected by our security measures. Our intent is to make those details public in the coming weeks,” reads a statement attributed to Dave Hall, event security director for the group.
Concerns over wildlife
The footprint of the event in an area home to bears, wolves and cougars drew concerns from environmentalists.
All told, the summit was peaceful and uneventful — except for a bear that had made its way too close to the leaders’ site and was trying to access food. Officers tried to scare it away, but it fell out of a tree, injuring itself severe enough that it needed to be killed, officials said at the time.
Still, the site posed certain advantages, according to John Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group.
For instance, it was easier to protect from a hijacked civilian airliner or a missile compared to other options, he said. Plus, limited access meant protesters on foot were easily stymied.
“To get to the two hotels up in Kananaskis, the protesters would have to go up one little road … which was extremely easy to close off by multiple layers of security forces,” he said. “It was a well-chosen site, and it’s not surprising that the Canadian government decided to use it again this year.”
Political change coming in Canada
The summit approaches in the wake of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation and amid political turbulence tied to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threats against Canada.
Summit-watchers such as Kirton will be looking to see how much the next prime minister will approach the agenda, previously outlined by Trudeau. The focus is currently set around inclusive economic growth, climate change, and managing rapidly developing technologies, particularly artificial intelligence.
Beyond learning who will succeed Trudeau, there are a number of other unknowns still to be determined. But for individuals who were on the ground in 2002, there are some certainties, too.
“No detail went unchecked,” said Gary Mar, an Alberta cabinet minister at the time of the 2002 summit.
Within Kananaskis, the number of people will be restricted to very small delegations of the leaders, Mar said. But the spillover of the event will be of significantly higher scale.
“The world’s media is going to be here in Calgary, an hour and a half away from Kananaskis,” Mar said. “I would expect that the Canadian government is setting up venues for events that are on the margins of the G7. So, this is a really great opportunity for Alberta to showcase its issues to a world media.”
This year’s summit will mark the seventh time Canada has hosted a G7 summit.
