Free trade, climate among issues on Trudeau agenda at G7 summit in Italy

TAORMINA, Italy – Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada will champion the benefits of free trade and action on climate change at the G7 Summit in Taormina, Sicily, even as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to steer the world in another direction.

A senior government official with intimate knowledge of the negotiations says the Paris Agreement on the fight against climate change, which Trump might back out of, and international trade remain major sticking points that will likely keep talks going through the night.

Freeland, though, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be looking to find common ground among the seven leaders around the table while standing firmly behind Canada’s positions on those issues.

Freeland says one thing the leaders can agree on is that they must work together to counter the threat of violent extremism, which is expected to play a bigger role in the talks in the wake of Monday’s deadly terrorist attack on a concert arena in Manchester, England that killed 22 people.

But the official says there are likely to gaps between leaders on the role that migration policy plays in that issue.

Canada will be hosting the G7 summit next year and an official says Trudeau is expected to make inclusive growth and gender equality the major themes of the gathering at a remote luxury resort in the Charlevoix region of Quebec.