Conclusion

Taken together, then, the prospects for Halifax, two months prior to the leaders themselves assembling, suggest that Canada will continue its movement toward successfully practicing the diplomacy of concert. As host it has done much to shape the agenda - putting and keeping international financial institutional reform as the centrepiece, adding reform of sustainable development institutions as a major subject, pressing its broad trade agenda, and focusing on proactive peacekeeping in the political sphere. Amidst the usual array of issue specific coalitions, it has shown signs of stronger co-operation with its Pacific partners, the United States, and now Japan. And while it remains for the leaders themselves to present, and in substantial part produce, the final agreements, in a large number of issue areas Halifax is likely to deliver collective decisions of which Canada and the G7 as a whole can be proud.