The Right Honourable Paul Martin on a Vision for the G20

Hosted by Alan Alexandroff

Summary

This podcast interview with the Right Honorable Paul Martin, interviewer Alan Alexandroff, a Senior Editor here at Global Summitry, is the embedded podcast accompanying Mr. Martin’s video text. This video was delivered at the opening of the Vision 20 meeting in China (March 29th to April 1st) at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. As the Editor’s Note in the text points out, the V20 brought together scholars from various international policy fields, think tank leaders, civil society and private sector representatives and various government leaders, all to generate ideas and actionable items for the long and medium term in global governance.

Paul Martin was the Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and the Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2002. Mr. Martin was the inaugural chair of the Finance Ministers’ G20. Mr. Martin not only was central in setting up this first version of the G20 but was one of the earliest advocates of a leaders’ level summit – what eventually became the G20. As Mr. Martin wrote in 2005 in the venerable journal Foreign Affairs, “The main justification for an L-20 can be expressed very simply: the boundaries between countries are growing fainter. Globalization is not a process that can be turned on and off at will.” In this interview with Mr. Martin, our Senior Editor explores with the former Prime Minister his assessment of the Leaders’ G20. Where has the G20 been a success; where has it failed to meet the expectations of Mr. Martin? What recommendations does Mr. Martin have for this most critical of leaders’ summits in the hopes of making the Summit more effective?

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