The Group of Eight (G-8) is a forum for the leaders of eight of the world’s most industrialized nations, aimed at finding common ground on key topics and solutions to global issues. The G-8 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. While the leaders of these countries are in regular contact, they meet in summit format as the G-8 once a year.
The G-8’s origin stems from meetings held in the 1970s between France’s Valéry Giscard D’Estaing and Germany’s Helmut Schmidt when they were finance ministers. Each subsequently assumed the leadership of their respective countries, just as the mid-1970s oil crisis was buffeting the world’s largest economies. French President Giscard D’Estaing urged the leaders of Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States to meet in 1975 to discuss how to respond to the oil crisis.
Canada joined the group in 1976 at the Puerto Rico Summit hosted by the United States. The European Community, now the European Union, was given observer status the following year at the London Summit. Russia became a full-fledged member of the G-8 in 1998.
Canada has hosted four summits since 1976: Ottawa-Montebello 1981, Toronto 1988, Halifax 1995 and Kananaskis 2002. Canada is host of the Muskoka 2010 G-8 Summit in Huntsville on June 25 and 26.