‘Say something’: Protesters gather as G7 leaders’ summit gets underway in Alberta

CALGARY — As world leaders gather at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., Lesley Boyer has a message.

The Calgary grandmother is angry that U.S. President Donald Trump keeps talking about Canada becoming his country’s 51st state.

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Sitting in a wheelchair at Calgary City Hall on Sunday, Boyer held up a sign with an expletive aimed at Trump.

“I’ve been waving my sign around the cameras and hopefully he’ll see it … go away Trump. We don’t want you here,” she said.

Boyer was among several hundred people — including labour, youth, Indigenous, political and environmental activists — protesting before most of the G7 leaders had touched down in the city.

Trump arrived late Sunday at the Calgary airport before taking a helicopter to the summit site at Kananaskis in the Rocky Mountains. He was to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday morning before the official summit was to begin.

“I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to put myself on the right side of history. It’s close enough,” Boyer said.

“I can come with my mobility issues and have my say, and I thought it was really important to get out there and say something.”

Others at the protest also had anti-American signs reading “Yankee Go Home,” “Elbows Up” and “True North Strong and Peeved.”

The city hall location is one of three designated protest zones in Calgary and Banff, where demonstrations are to be broadcast on TVs set up for the leaders in Kananaskis, which has been closed to the public.

G7 leaders from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy and the European Union are also at the gathering.

“We see it just as a group of capitalist world leaders that are getting together,” Eva Clark, a spokesperson with the Revolutionary Communist Party, said during the group’s demonstration.

“It’s not to chat about what’s best for the world, not to chat about the climate crisis or any massive crisis going around the world, but explicitly to talk about how they can best continue their extraction of profits.”

Clark said it’s more important for others in the world to see and hear the protests — not the leaders.

“I feel like the voice we have here in Canada is in moments like this, where we can protest and be heard. I’m not super interested in being heard by the fat cats in Kananaskis right now.”

Carney also invited leaders of non-member countries to the summit, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which sparked a protest in Ottawa on Saturday. The RCMP has accused agents of Modi’s government of playing a role in “widespread violence” in Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2025.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press