| Summit Name: | 21st G7 summit |
| Country: | Canada |
| Dates: | June 15–17, 1995 |
| Follows: | 20th G7 summit |
| Precedes: | 22nd G7 summit |
The 21st G7 summit was held on June 15–17, 1995 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The venue for this summit meeting was Summit Place in Halifax.[1] It was labelled by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as a "Chevrolet Summit", using a utilitarian automobile as a metaphor for the summit being less expensive than previous summits in Versailles and Venice.[2]
The Group of Seven (G7) is an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976),[3] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).[4] The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.[5]
The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[4] Boris Yeltsin was also in attendance representing Russia.
The 21st G7 summit was the first summit for French President Jacques Chirac and the last summit for Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. It was also the first and only summit for Italian Prime Minister Lamberto Dini.
These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:[6] [1] [7]
| Core G7 members Host state and leader are shown in bold text. | |||
| Member | Represented by | Title | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Canada | Jean Chrétien | Prime Minister |
 | France | Jacques Chirac | President |
 | Germany | Helmut Kohl | Chancellor |
 | Italy | Lamberto Dini | Prime Minister |
 | Japan | Tomiichi Murayama | Prime Minister |
| United Kingdom | John Major | Prime Minister | |
 | United States | Bill Clinton | President |
| European Union | Jacques Santer | Commission President | |
| Jacques Chirac | Council President | ||
The summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members. As a practical matter, the summit was also conceived as an opportunity for its members to give each other mutual encouragement in the face of difficult economic decisions.[5] Issues which were discussed at this summit included:
This was the first year that the G8 summit was marked by an official World Wide Web site on the Internet sponsored by the Canadian Government. Two unofficial web pages were also created, one set up by Dalhousie University in Halifax, the summit site, and the other created by teachers and students of Cornwallis Junior High School there.[8]