Stephen Harper and Canada carrying a bigger stick at this year’s G8 Summit

You may just see Prime Minister Stephen Harper walk into the G8 meetings this week with a bit of a swagger.

Harper comes to this international summit of world economic leaders in France with a new majority government and an economy that's the envy of the western world.

These dynamics, obviously, come with a little more influence and he's likely to peddle that power to his world counterparts.

And, if the first day today is any indication, other world leaders appear to be going out of their way to meet with him.

The G8 conference brings together Harper and other leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

As noted in a Postmedia News column, all the G8 leaders except Harper face some combination of political insecurity and/or economic stress, with Japan beset by the tsunami and nuclear disaster and the four EU leaders grappling with the continent's debt crisis.

"There's no doubt that Canada is much better placed to take a higher profile and be listened to than it was a few years ago," Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform, told Postmedia.

With the emergence of the G20, which includes burgeoning economies such as China and India, some have argued the G8 is becoming less relevant.

For Canada, however, the G8 structure gives it an opportunity to exert its influence on the rest of the world - so for us the G8 is more relevant than ever.

Stewart Patrick of the Council of Foreign Relations said the smaller group can still be effective.

"Much of the G8's attraction is exclusivity, pure and simple. This is especially true for relative lightweights like Italy and Canada, who enjoy far greater influence than in the larger G20," he noted.

"(The) western partners regard the G8 as a more congenial framework in which to discuss sensitive issues of "high politics"— such as Iran's nuclear program. And they also see it as a useful mechanism to generate foreign assistance for developing countries."

This week's G8 agenda reflects these considerations.

The member countries are expected to discuss significant world issues such as political and economic support to aid North African countries in a transition to democracy, the European debt crisis and a negotiated path to a Palestinian state.

This gives Harper the opportunity to flex his newly found international muscle.

(Reuters Photo)