Two parishioners from Whitehorse United Church are in Calgary for the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum.
Stéphanie Nobécourt and Marie-Alexis Dangréau are attending the forum, which is scheduled to take place between June 12 to 15 — ahead of the G7 Leaders’ Summit, which will see the leaders of Japan, the United States, Italy, the European Union, France, Germany, and the U.K. converge on Kananaskis, Alberta.
KAIROS Canada — a faith-based organization associated with the United Church of Canada — is hosting the forum. The forum will see activists from across Canada call upon the leaders attending the G7 to cancel the debts of the world’s poorest countries.
The name of the forum is rooted in the religious tradition of jubilee, in which debts are cancelled, slaves are freed, and the land is permitted to rest without farming, said Nobécourt.
The Roman Catholic Church declared 2025 to be a jubilee year: previous jubilee years include 2016 and 2000. In 2000, according to KAIROS, $100 billion of debt was cancelled for 35 nations.
“Today, there's about 3.3 billion people — so it's about 40 per cent of the world's population —that are facing, that are living in countries that are facing a debt crisis,” said Nobécourt, speaking to the News from Calgary.
“They spend more money on reimbursing the interest, reimbursing the debt, rather than spending money on their health and social and educational project,” she said.
“In some cases, it's really recognized that there is no way they can get out of it.”
According to United Nations Trade and Development, developing countries are sinking deeper into a debt crisis. The agency said developing nations face higher interest rates than developed countries. In 2023, 54 countries — almost half of which are in Africa — spent at least 10 per cent of government funds on interest payments.
In Calgary, Nobécourt and Dangréau said they will spend their time in workshops, so they can bring back what they learned to Whitehorse. They also said that they will be attending a march on June 15 — the start of the G7 summit.
Nobécourt said this year’s jubilee is calling not only for debt cancellation, but also global financial reform and the creation of a transparent, binding and fair debt resolution framework with the United Nations.
Dangréau said that the debt in question goes beyond simply financial debt but also ecological debt.
“Wealthy countries like Canada, they don't just, you know, lend money to this country. They also exploit resources from these already heavily indebted countries and also from Indigenous communities. And all of that exploitation is causing harm, human rights violations and severe ecological harm to this country,” she said.
The heap leach facility failure at Victoria Gold's Eagle Mine in 2024 is one example that Nobécourt lists as ecological debt that may hit close to home.
“We impact the land, and we impact all the beings that live on this land. And we impact also Indigenous people that live off this land, not only for eating, but also spiritually, for their practice and their relationship with the land,” she said.
For Nobécourt, being in Calgary for the forum reflects with her values.
“It's such a great opportunity to put my values in action, to voice concerns about our society and what should be integrated in our evolving structure,” said Nobécourt.
“Whatever we are creating as a society is not something that is set in stone, can always evolve. We are aware of mistakes we are doing. And it’s a way for me to voice it.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
