From January 27 to 31, 2010, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland welcomed business and political leaders from around world. The five-day event had various items on the agenda including the G20, global growth, the crisis in Haiti, global development and climate change. Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed the audience in a keynote speech which outlined a strategy for continuing efforts to tackle the economic crisis and an agenda for both the G8 and G20 meetings to be held in Huntsville and Toronto respectively at the end of June 2010.

The PM made sure to praise Canada and discuss the merits of its financial and banking system as a principle reason why the Canadian economy did not gravely suffer during the economic meltdown. He encouraged other countries to follow a similar path by allowing stronger financial regulation and improved coordination but at the same time "not go down a path of excessive, arbitrary or punitive regulation." His speech was a contrast to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech a day earlier when he opened the Annual Meeting by calling for tighter financial controls as well as more international intervention and oversight. Several banking officials at the meeting were also stressing the dangers of increasing regulations warning that "a flood of new regulations risk choking off a global economic recovery."

As the host of the G8 and G20 meetings this year, Harper also took the opportunity to reveal his agenda. According to Harper, the G8 and G20 are the most appropriate forums to discuss the way forward and economic cooperation. Additionally, chief items to be discussed at the upcoming summits include terrorism, piracy, and nuclear proliferation. Human welfare concerns such as maternal and child health in the developing world will also be a top priority in June.

Following his keynote speech, the PM took part in a roundtable discussion entitled "Global Governance Redesigned". With the Copenhagen conference fresh on the delegates' minds, climate change was a topic of heated debate. Canada has been criticized as having a bad reputation with regards to climate change. This image was further damaged as PM Harper stated that countries need to take into account the economic costs of being green and short-term emissions goals cannot be met without sinking economies. Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, who will be the host of the next climate change conference in Cancun in November 2010, disagreed with his Canadian counterpart explaining that the time to act is now and governments and the private sector should build cleaner energy plants in developing countries to help poor nations reduce emissions as they grow and deal with the effects of global warming.

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(Image credit: World Economic Forum)