As my flight landed in Calgary, it was hard not to be struck by the monumental scale of the mountains on the horizon and the thought that soon some of the world’s most powerful people would be meeting there for the G7 Leaders’ Summit surrounded by security and distanced from the group of people I was going to meet.
From June 13th to 15th, I had the opportunity to attend the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum organized by the ecumenical social justice organization KAIROS and other groups. While the world waited to see what would be discussed and done at the G7 leaders’ meetings, more than 100 people from across Canada and around the world were gathering at Ambrose University in the east end of Calgary to take part in the People’s Forum. As the campus coordinator for the University of Ottawa Student Christian Movement chapter, I was grateful to be able to travel to attend with support from KAIROS and the World Student Christian Federation Canada’s Lois Freeman Wilson fund.
The Jubilee 2025 – Turn Debt into Hope campaign was a central focus of the forum. Building on the work of Jubilee 2000, which cancelled $100 billion of debt for 36 low-income countries, Jubilee 2025 is a global ecumenical initiative calling for:
- Debt cancellation for unjust and unsustainable debts.
- Global financial reform to prevent future crises.
- A debt resolution framework within the United Nations that is transparent, binding and fair.
The forum was intended to help turn the more than 38,000 signatures into a real political movement.
While there, participants had a chance to hear from Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto, a friend of Pope Francis and a human and environmental rights advocate. Cardinal Barreto spoke about the global importance of Jubilee and its religious significance. We also had the chance to participate in a multifaith prayer service hosted by the Calgary Interfaith Council. This included hearing about the Jewish roots of Jubilee from two rabbis, the Muslim tradition of debt forgiveness and poverty alleviation, and listening to music and prayer from Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, and Baha’i faith leaders. We ended the first evening with a Sikh langar, a traditional meal often served in a Gurdwara where everyone sits and eats communally, and everyone is served by volunteers. I had the immense privilege of being one of the volunteers given the chance to serve others.
Throughout the course of the forum, we heard from experts on the global debt crisis. Shockingly, more than three billion people in the world live in countries that spend more on trying to pay off debt than they do on education or healthcare. This crisis, as explained by Dean Dettloff, a research and advocacy officer at the Roman Catholic organization Development and Peace – Caritas Canada, is rooted in the history of colonialism and imperialism. Countries were underdeveloped, forced to take on massive debt to develop, and then forced by policies at institutions such as the World Bank to adopt harsh austerity packages to pay off the debt. Ultimately, this led to countries being trapped in a cycle of debt, austerity, and then debt again.
We closed the weekend by joining demonstrators from a variety of causes in a peaceful march through Calgary. Our distinctive flame signs with messages such as ‘hope not debt’ and ‘fund peace not war’ caught the attention of other attendees, the media, and bystanders. Standing with people from across Canada to send a unique, multifaceted message to the G7 leaders was very inspiring. From Filipino activists, Indigenous land defenders, Palestinian peace advocates, Jubilee campaign people protesting for debt justice, and many more causes, our march was a beautiful patchwork of a myriad of social causes.
As a campus co-ordinator for the Student Christian Movement, the forum was a unique opportunity for me as to connect with activists, faith leaders, and others from across the country. The opportunity to meet a dozen or so young people who, like me, had received support to attend reinvigorated my hope for the future of Christianity in Canada. The young people I met were deeply faithful people, but they were also leaders in their campuses, churches, and communities. They were activists, researchers, musicians, photographers, and so much more. If these are the kind of young people who our church makes an effort to nourish, inspire, and develop, our church has a bright future. KAIROS, particularly member relations and network co-ordinator Shannon Neufeldt, and the Jubilee Forum really worked to do that, and I hope it is an example that church organizations will follow.
If you would like to join the global Jubilee campaign with 38,000 Canadians, you can sign the petition here:
https://kairoscanada.org/jubilee-2025-canada/petition-turn-debt-into-hope
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