Experts say the G8 summit remains an influential pulpit for Canada, despite the fact that the annual meet-and-greet is losing its grip on global economic concerns.

Ottawa has announced that the upcoming G8 summit in Huntsville, Ont., the fifth ever to be hosted on Canadian soil, will focus largely on security concerns and human welfare.

From a Canadian perspective, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called for an emphasis on child and maternal health in the developing world -- a topic that ignited a debate over how abortion services should be incorporated into such initiatives.

Previously, the G8 would likely have included economic issues in its summit agenda. But that torch was passed to the G20 in Pittsburgh last fall, when it became what the leaders described as "the premier forum for our international economic co-operation."

That same day, Harper announced that Canada would host back-to-back G8 and G20 summits. And he admitted Ottawa could end up with a lesser say in the larger group.

"It would be crazy for me to deny that to some degree. Obviously we are one of 20 instead of one of eight. It's a different dynamic," he said.

A shrinking seat at a growing table

The suggestion is that Canada becomes a smaller fish in a bigger pond, if the G8 loses influence to the G20.

But Randall Germain, a political science professor at Carleton University, argues that for Canada, things are the same as they ever were, whether it is part of the G8 or the G20.

Canada, he said, is a resource-rich country that does not have unlimited potential for economic growth based on its population size.

"We've punched above our weight economically for a very long period of time," he told CTV.ca in a recent telephone interview.

Instead, Canada's sway is based on its reputation and its position as a mid-level power.

"Our influence is changing, but I don't think it's necessarily diminishing," he said.

John Kirton, the head of the G8 Research Centre at the University of Toronto, believes Canada is in a position to retain a strong influence in the long term for several reasons, including having "one of the soundest financial systems in the world."

In the immediate future, Kirton points out that Harper is one of the most veteran political leaders attending the Huntsville summit next month.

Of the seven countries attending next month's meeting, only German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have served longer as the leaders of their respective countries.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Barack Obama have all attended recent G8 meetings, but not as many as the Canadian prime minister.

Two other leaders will be attending their first-ever G8 summit -- Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and newly elected British Prime Minister David Cameron.

That leaves Harper in "more of a leadership role," Kirton explained in a recent telephone interview.

The G20 and G8 can work in unison and by hosting the back-to-back summits, Harper has the opportunity to "get the relationship between the two right," Kirton said.

The story of the G8

The changing nature of the G8 is not a new story.

It all started back in 1975 when the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met to discuss the oil crisis. A year later, Canada joined the discussions that have since continued on an annual basis. Two decades later, Russia was sitting at the summit table and would be formally welcomed into what is now known as the Group of Eight.

But alongside the G8 came the accompanying rise of the Group of 20 -- a similar version of the former summit that includes many powerful and emerging economies, including China, India and Brazil.

The concept of expanding the G8 was initially hatched in the late 1990s, guided by the hand of former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, when he served as the Liberal finance minister.

"The G20 is the world's steering committee," Martin said in an interview earlier this year that is posted on his personal website. "We created it in the late 1990s, when it no longer made sense to not have countries like China and India at the negotiating table."

Germain says the changing role of the G8 -- in ceding its economic purview to the G20 -- does not imply that it has become irrelevant.

Germain argues the G8 countries continue to hold sway on economic issues as major industrial nations who hold much of the key infrastructure of the global economy.

But there is no doubt that during the recent global financial crisis, the G8 countries found themselves dragged along by the growth seen in major emerging economies, most notably China and India.

And that's a trend that is not going to change as these economies "are increasingly affected by what going on in the developing world," said Germain.

The wealthy nations of the G8 are also more vulnerable than ever to the flow of capital between countries and in the midst of the financial crisis they were helped out by the stimulus offered by China.

For these reasons, it makes sense to give this wider group of developing nations a seat at the table when it comes to keeping the global economy afloat -- the same as it did when the G20 was conceived.

And just because international economic issues are no longer seen to be the exclusive purview of the G8 summit, there is no rule stipulating that such issues cannot be discussed, said Kirton.

"They can talk about anything they want," Kirton said. "If there is an economic crisis, they will talk about it."