Former prime minister Jean Chretien says dignitaries attending the upcoming G7 leaders summit in Alberta should avoid engaging the “crazy” from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Chretien, speaking Thursday at a conference in Calgary, said leaders can’t predict what Trump might do. He said the president can be a bully and it would be best if the rest of the G7 leaders ignored any outbursts.
“If he has decided to make a show to be in the news, he will do something crazy,” he said.
“Let him do it and keep talking normally.”
Chretien said leaders should follow the example set by Prime Minister Mark Carney when he visited Trump at the White House last month.
“When Trump talked about Canada to be part of the United States, [Carney] just said ‘Canada is not for sale, the White House is not for sale, Buckingham Palace is not for sale,'” Chretien said.
“Trump said, ‘Never say never,’ [but Carney] didn’t even reply. He just moved on with the discussion. It’s the way to handle that.”
Carney is hosting Trump and world leaders from France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy and the European Union for the three-day summit starting Sunday in Kananaskis, located in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Calgary.
Chretien, speaking alongside his former deputy prime minister and finance minister John Manley, also said he supported Carney’s decision to invite India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the summit.
Carney has been criticized for the invitation, including by a member of his own Liberal caucus, due to ongoing tensions between Canada and India over foreign interference and the 2023 killing of Sikh separatism activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C. The RCMP has said it has evidence linking members of the Indian government to Singh’s death.
“It’s always good to talk,” Chretien said of the Modi invite. “They will be able to talk and they will see there are other problems.
“You have to navigate. You cannot always go on your high horse for every little problem you’re confronted with.”
Chretien was one of two former Canadian prime ministers speaking at the conference, hosted by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and the G7 Research Group.
The university says the conference is meant to bring experts and officials together to explain key issues G7 leaders are facing heading into the summit.
Former prime minister Joe Clark, born in High River, Alta., closed out the conference by urging greater ties with the U.K. and France. He also offered similar advice not to entertain any public theatre Trump may engage in during the summit.
“I don’t think there’s any point in throwing up our hands or criticizing [Trump],” Clark said.
“I think it would be wise to have more private dealings and fewer public dealings until the proclivities of the U.S. president change.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith also spoke at the conference.
She said the possibility of an economic and security deal between Canada and the United States being signed at the G7 would be an extraordinary step.
She urged Canada to continue finding new trading partners, even if the relationship between the two countries begins to smooth over.
“Let’s not take our foot off the gas,” Smith said.
David Angell, current foreign and defence policy adviser to Carney, said on a separate panel that the world leaders are meeting “at a moment of enormous flux globally, when tensions among G7 members are especially pronounced.”
Carney announced Monday he’s planning for Canada to meet NATO’s spending guideline by early next year.
Angell, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, said the country made a mistake in allowing the defence industry to “shift onto a kind of assumption of peacetime footing.”
He said the G7 can be exceptionally consequential and no other process allows for discussion about the “wicked issues” core to defence issues.
