Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to the B20 Business Summit as Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty looks on at the G20 Summit in Toronto, Saturday June 26.Adrian Wyld
The Canadian Press has learned that Canada has won the day on its G20 campaign against a bank tax, but a summit agreement to adopt hard targets on debt and deficit is still up in the air.
Sources say the final communique to be issued late Sunday afternoon will say that all countries should make sure that taxpayers are not stuck with the bill when banks fail.
The G20 will leave it up to individual countries to decide how they want to do that, whether it be through a bank tax, capital requirements or some sort of "living will."
But even though recent drafts of the G20 final statement include agreements on hard debt and deficit targets, insiders warn that several countries are getting cold feet.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants countries to agree, at a minimum, to cut deficits in half by 2013 and to put debt on a downward path by 2016.
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