Capitalism must be better regulated to prevent future financial crises,
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says after meeting French President
Nicolas Sarkozy.

QUEBEC CITY, CANADA (OCTOBER 17, 2008) POOL -
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas
Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed on Friday
(October 17) on the need to hold an international summit before the end of the
year "to restore confidence and the normal functioning of the financial
system".
"These times call for closer economic cooperation," Harper
said at a joint news conference in Quebec City.
They met a day ahead of talks that Sarkozy and Barroso will hold with
U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David in Maryland.
"Clearly in the world of globalization, our institutions and our
capacity to act have not kept up with other developments, and we're seeing
some of the consequences of that, and we have to have new
infrastructure," Harper said.
"Among other things this means rejecting the frequent tendency in
difficult times to turn inward and erect barriers between our economies and
our citizens. Indeed we must stand against protectionism and work to lower
and eliminate barriers," Harper added.
Sarkozy said a summit is needed to launch an overhaul or
"refoundation" of capitalism to become "a capitalism of
entrepreneurs, not speculators". The French president rejected the idea
that regulation somehow clashed with freedom.
"There is no freedom without a minimum of regulation and
supervision," the conservative leader said, adding the world must ensure
the same causes do not produce the same effects.
Sarkozy said he aimed for progress in Quebec and in his Saturday's
(October 18) meeting with Bush on the date, agenda and attendees of a
financial crisis summit.
Harper said a summit date must be set as soon as possible, and Sarkozy
said he preferred it take place before the end of November. Sarkozy said it
should include more than the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized
nations.
In the prepared text of a later speech to the province of Quebec's
legislature, Sarkozy said the world must be done with "a financial
capitalism obsessed with the frenzied search for short-term profit" and
reintroduce social and moral responsibility.
"For the crisis in which the world finds itself, unprecedented
since the 1930s, is not a technical crisis. It's a moral crisis," he
said.
Harper said in such times it was important to work against
protectionism, which exacerbated the Great Depression, and to that end the EU
and Canada agreed to launch negotiations on an economic partnership as soon as
possible in 2009.
They also decided to conclude a comprehensive air transport agreement
by Nov. 30.