G7 urged to address poverty at Iqaluit meeting

Activists want poverty and its impact to be high on the agenda when the Group of Seven leaders meet in Iqaluit later this week.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States are travelling to the North for the two-day conference, which opens Friday.

Dennis Howlett, national coordinator of the group Make Poverty History Canada, says G7 countries should discuss bringing in a global tax on banks for transactions involving stocks, bonds and foreign exchange. He says the money collectedcould help poor, developing nations.

Howlett says the proposal isespecially important in light of the world's financial crisis.

"The impact has been most negatively felt actually in the poor countries and so I do think the rich countries have some responsibility as the ones who caused this to look at what more needs to be done to help recovery," he says.

Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, says poverty in the North and the rest of Canada also needs to be dealt with, even though it's nowhere near the extreme conditions in developing countries.

His group is also calling on the G7 nations to consider a financial transaction tax.

"Right now, there are people who live on less than $2 a day around the world who do need help and cannot survive without our support," he says.

The proposed international levy on banks has already been discussed at recent G7 and Group of 20 meetings as a way to offset the cost of bank bailouts. Howlett says his group sees the tax as a means tohelp people living in extreme poverty.

For G7 leaders,there is no pressure to issue any statement on the proposal.They've decided to do away with the communiqu traditionally issued at the end of such meetings.

Analysts say the group has recognized that G7 meetings are intended for informal discussions, while G20 leaders, including those guiding the emerging economies of China, Brazil and India, are now largely formulating global economic policies.