Darina Boykova is a 2L at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. Last week she attended the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, on assignment for JURIST. This is the first part of a two-part report. 

Last week in beautiful and sunny Kananaskis was distinguished by Canada’s hosting of the G7 Summit. Besides the leaders of all the G7 countries–Canada, the US, France, UK, Japan, Germany, and Italy–the Summit on June 15-17 was attended by the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council, the Secretary General of NATO, and President of the World Bank Group. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put in an appearance. A historically substantial number of other international leaders also attended, among them heads of government from Australia, India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Ukraine, and Mexico.

I went too.

Arriving

Since the Summit was hosted in a province in the Canadian west, my partner—who insists on driving me around after I took one bad left turn three years ago—and I took a 7 pm flight from Ottawa to Calgary. Even though Ottawa is the capital of Canada, it is notoriously difficult to fly to and from. After getting through security, with officers noticing my “law school” sticker on my laptop and having an exciting conversation about G7, a gruesome 4-hour flight awaited us. Thankfully I took my Nintendo Switch with me, and soon we landed in Calgary. After picking up a rental car, we got to the hotel in Calgary, as Banff prices are not affordable. As much as I wanted to plop onto the bed, I forced myself to read up on the Iran-Israel conflict before finally falling asleep since I correctly assumed that it was going to be a central issue for the Summit.

Location and Organization

Since we stayed in Calgary, we had to make the hour-long trip to Banff and back each day. The road to Banff allowed us to admire the gorgeous mountains; we were wholeheartedly jealous of the dozens of cows who did not seem to realize how beautiful a view they had as they chewed their breakfast. Driving to Banff also allowed us to see diplomats on their way from Calgary to Kananaskis.  Even though we were hovering around the speed limit on the 110 km/h highways , the big black SUVs and black Mercedes vans with various flags on the front windows would always speed past us – they must have been eager to start working!

The Summit took place at Kananaskis, but the media were confined to Banff, specifically the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Only a small number of the media representatives were allowed to make the trip to Kananaskis to report on the Summit directly. Our working space spanned across three buildings: one building hosted the largest number of journalists in several huge working rooms, with the big dogs taking over editing rooms and reserved filming locations; one building contained the dining room; and one building had the conference centre, briefing room, and spaces for delegates. As we drove closer to the Centre, the extremely nice police officers checked my big yellow accreditation badge that we had picked up in Calgary before letting us through. Throughout the Summit, my partner and the police officers developed a friendly relationship, exchanging jokes as he dropped me off and picked me up. According to him, those police officers were a lot nicer than the ones I had met at the at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Quebec back in March. The campus itself was filled with security, with each entrance guarded by security personnel who glanced down at the badges before welcoming the journalists. The security personnel mainly remained at the designated entrances throughout the summit; as I walked in and out of the three building continuously, I developed a relationship with them, asking them how they were, inquiring if they tried whatever new dessert was being served that day, and complaining with them about the sudden downpours of rain.

Being restricted to Banff was not received well by the media. I joined the majority of the media reporting from Banff while relying on livestreams from Kananaskis provided by the pooled media – there were huge monitors in all work rooms, with translation devices scattered around. In some cases, the media in Banff was only able to witness what was happening from the livestream recording of the iPhone screens of other journalists recording the meeting. No actual meetings between leaders were recorded. All videos of the Summit were later made available on the website for the accredited media, throwing into question the value of travelling to Banff altogether.

Reporters who travelled internationally were shocked by the absurdity of the organization: for example, only one of the Ukrainian media representatives was able to cover this important-for- Ukraine Summit in person. Independent Ukrainian media expressed their frustration at not being able to have a chance to ask President Zelenskyy or Prime Minister Carney questions. Canadian journalists who cover Carney on a regular basis and are often in the same room as him were disappointed to be so far from the Summit. US reporters, whose accreditation badges had been threatened by the Trump administrated and who had to suffer privacy and security breaches that crossing the US border brings these days felt that this trip was a waste of time. Independent media representatives who had to spend precious company resources or even pay out-of-pocket the steep price of a trip to Banff were justifiably enraged. After covering the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting in March, and getting a greeting nod from Minister Joly as she walked by an arm-length away, the Summit was an unexpected disappointment. While the media centre was decorated to the brim with G7 logos, including the huge G7 sign that was most likely the most filmed object at Banff that weekend, I did not feel that I really attended the Summit.

Another flaw of the Summit was the scheduling and organizational issues. On the first day of the Summit, after arriving early, I was not provided a schedule until that afternoon—the only way I figured out the approximate time to show up was by checking the posted bus schedule for the pooled media from Banff to Kananaskis and deducing the time things should start being interesting. On the second day, I arrived at 8 am to cover the scheduled 8 am meeting, but the schedule had already changed twice by then, and I did not have anything to cover until 10 am. Other journalists called it the “get ready early and wait” phenomenon while crediting it to the profession as a whole.

Contrary to what most people would think, the Summit did not leave a lot of time for media representatives to relax and enjoy Banff. While the campus to which we were restricted did have magnificent views, some reporters proposed hiking between the meetings, and there were a number of trails nearby, the chaotic nature of the Summit and the lack of communications from the organizers made taking the time to enjoy the Rocky Mountains practically impossible.

Meeting Other Reporters

The best aspect of attending events such as the G7 Summit has to be the opportunity to meet various incredible journalists. Most of the reporters traveled in groups: the big dogs came with crews and in most cases stuck with them; in some cases, they did go out of their way to start conversations with reporters sitting alone. Out of the singular journalists, some chose to sit alone and work on their laptops even during downtime. Others glanced around and started conversations with anyone who happened to look their way. This is how I met a Saskatoon reporter on the first day;  we stuck together for the reminder of the Summit. My Saskatoon friend is an experienced reporter who shared a ton of tips and lived experience. Our group later gained a Ukrainian independent journalist based in the US (previously a UN diplomat), a University of Saskatchewan law student, and an Ottawa-based president of an international think tank. Being a complete beginner in journalism and covering the Summit out of sheer enthusiasm, it was extraordinary to meet people with such diverse education, career, and personal backgrounds and to have a chance to learn about potential directions for myself. Another notable connection I made was with a group of Ukrainian reporters: after hearing the Russian language being spoken from their side of the room, I had to investigate. As a Russian myself, meeting Ukrainian people can be a nervous experience, and later I did indeed disagree on the effectiveness and motives of Alexei Navalny with another Ukrainian journalist, but overall, I did not feel unwelcome or uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, some journalists were nicer than others: there have been a few instances of unexpected rudeness. On the first day, as I am drowning the poor young lady at the front desk with questions concerning the locations of the buildings, I hear grumpy sounds to my right. As I turn, I witness an older man, presumably a decently seasoned reporter, demand with a truckload of attitude from another young lady at the front desk the time when he will receive the schedule. After receiving an unsatisfactory answer, he proceeded, with the same amount of attitude, to inquire what he is supposed to do now. I was a bit shocked, as even I, being totally clueless of what is going on, was able to understand that these young people have no control over the schedule of the Summit. Another instance of less-than-desirable behavior came from crews shooting the recaps with the G7 sign in the background. The sign was located right behind the path towards one of the buildings reserved for media, resulting in crews shooting the sign yelling at the reporters making their way to the building.

One of the most unexpected effects of interacting with the media was the amount of information making its way among the journalists. At some points I felt that I should not have access to the information I was receiving: I knew everything from which hotels the leaders were staying at, when they woke up, how they spend their days to how much money reporters had to pay to be part of the pool media that travelled to Kananaskis. The large holes in the schedule were filled with personal accounts of events, gossip, and critique of leaders and organizers. The publicly impartial journalists were also more than willing to share their disdain for Trump and some Canadian politicians alongside personal experiences of dealing with both.

Food

The G7 food deserves a separate mention. We were fed on campus, in Vistas Dining Room, which was located in a separate building with a notoriously scary elevator. Each meal was made up of different dishes, with a large amount of allergy-safe, vegan, and gluten-free food. Meat and cheese platters, a veggie bar and a new dressing was provided with every meal. The dishes were fancy too, from risottos to elk sirloin. Each meal had 4-5 different desserts, without me noticing that the desserts were ever repeated. One time, one of the chefs was standing next to the dessert table and was pointing out to me the dessert he liked the most. The most memorable dessert has to be the lemon tarts – I won’t be ashamed to admit that I and my newfound Saskatoon friend made our USask Law buddy, who was eating later than us, grab us 5 more lemon tarts in a to-go box.

Alcohol was also served to the reporters in the café in the main building. While I did not feel comfortable drinking on the job, I did hear some reporters having a lot of discussions about drinking. While I was attending the Summit with a goal of providing very general coverage of it, other journalists had narrower assignments or more teammates, allowing them more freedom to do things outside the Summit.

Wasted Money

There were a lot of conversations about the money spent on the Summit alongside the discussions about the wasted travel expenses for the media. Without diving too deep into the conversation on the importance of varied coverage of events, it was eye-opening to see a line of 20 or so crews shooting their own reporters in front of the same sign, sharing the same recaps. No personal insights, just “he said” and “she said” scripts. How many of the same videos with different faces and voices are out there reaching the same people over and over again? Outside of that complicated topic, there were a lot of conversations on wasted money among the media. Canada went all out to host the Summit: besides being fed and hosted, the media received a lot of gifts and was able to view a showcase about Alberta. The campus was decorated to an absurd level as well: there even were G7 decals on windows—at that point just tape yellow 100 dollar bills (a bit of Canadian humour for you) onto the windows: the bill is arguably prettier! The absurdity does not stop there: there were two different stages for leaders to “meet” on and take photos on. Skipping past the detailed itemized list, while understanding the importance of maintaining the spirit of the event, I cannot but be disappointed. Putting the wasted money and the travel pollution of over 1000 journalists who were accredited to just sit and watch a TV screen together alongside the crudely summarized G7 words of acknowledging and fighting global issues creates a dissonance. I am glad the leaders were able to enjoy their trip to the beautiful Rockies, to try interesting drinks, to create a set of viral memes for Reddit and to view entertaining performances, but why pretend to save the world? Is the G7 Summit just an opportunity to show off?

As media was arriving throughout the three days of the Summit, each reporter received a G7 canvas bag, a stainless steel North Spring Water G7 water bottle, a couple of pins with Indigenous language, a G7 pin, a G7 sticker, pamphlets, a G7 research book and a book compiled by Indigenous communities about Indigenous cultures. The water bottles were given out later on as well, with journalists taking many of them home. After the Summit, I found at least two of those bottles being sold on eBay – one for $300 and one for $20; while reporters did joke about selling the bottles, I was not expecting them to go through with it. Personally, I love the shape, size, and colour of the bottles and I am planning to use them. Unfortunately, a lot of the bottles were later seen in the trash, once again raising questions of money wasted.

To be continued…