Molly

They'd only have to tough it out as petty peons for a couple of nights. If I can do an air mattress and a tent for a week at a time for fun, then the overinflated service personnel and clingons can do it for a couple of days for the business of the world. Ha! There's always the ATCO motel, for a H of a lot less than $1.2 billion!

So what's the point of the circus placing 'all of the leaders and their delegations' in one place, anyway, especially since it's a sure-fire recipe for having that place get trashed by hooligans? Pfft! Let the delegations have their party next month, or in another place, or not at all. Frankly, the hangers-on just aren't very important. Certainly not important enough to justify this kind of mess.

What portion of post-22 week abortions fall within that 6%? Could it possibly be... all of them?

That's ...oxymoronic.

What a duh-duh-dumb comment!

Anyone who has ever used a cattle prod knows that it's not an effective calming tool, and if that's what you expect when you use it, you are in for a dirty surprise.

It's not uncommon in some areas to hire the local roping club to run security. Drop a lasso on a troublemaker, and walk your horse away... the excitement is over without anyone getting hurt. ------------------------------------------------- A 27-year-old in a group home is more likely to be a patient than a criminal. It's not so long ago in the same region, that a young fellow who was completely peaceful but mentally challenged was shot to death by police, for the horrible crime of being excited about seeing a uniformed officer. Clearly there's room for improvement in procedure. Harmless folk and people in need of assistance just shouldn't be ending up dead.

I don't even buy that. The actual heads of state are the only people whose keep and welfare are the obligation of the host nation. Staffs and delegations are... a gaggle of tourists at no particular risk, whose way may or may not be paid by the nation that sent them, but certainly not by us.

Beauty.

'Xactly. Even if that's what it appropriately costs - a thought I find highly unlikely, bordering on the preposterous- but if it actually does really cost that much, then it's not worth it! and a reformat of the process is desperately, wildly overdue.

Um... that would be $930 million, not $500 million. We should wish it was tranformed to $500 milion.

Page cautioned that his 12-page report, which was completed in less than one month, does not provide a value-for-money analysis.

Wow. I might say something like that too, but if I said it, it would be sarcastically intended.

Agh! I just did a bit more obvious thumbnail math wrt the costs! Even assuming that every one of the heads of state has an extensive coterie of clingons requiring as much personal security and entertainment as they do, and that those coteries are so extensive (say, averaging 25 officials per nation, and counting 40-ish nations) that as many as 1000 people must be hosted and kept safe -- thats still well over a million dollars a nose!!!! For one stinking weekend. And it doesn't even cover the disruption and damage costs. Nobody can tell me that's a reasonable or even a defensible cost. It's complete craziness. Absolutely insanity.

PFFT! If she's the better half, why didn't she run for office? I don't get the fascination with celebrity spouses. If you are looking for a hero, why not look for someone who has actually done something, and not just become the #1 cling-on?

'Xcuse me, but when someone is killed so unnecessarily, through such absence of judgement or restraint..... and then they go to such lengths to cover it up and lie about it..... and then they ask for our trust and respect.... ...we have a right to judge that, and to find it unacceptable. They are supposed to be PEACE officers.

Speaking of YVR, have they cleaned up their proceedures enough that a repeat performance is unlikely? They've managed to fly under the sanction radar for the most part, but only because, incredibly, police screwed up even worse, but there's plenty of blame to go round.

Toadbrother already answered you very well... but I object to 'misconception'. In majority situations, the PM has the clear approved of the majority of the house, so such power as is granted is legitimately granted by the true authourity, which is the house. This PMO does not have the approval of the house... but through the cowardice of the opposition and the glacial pace of parliamentary discipline, still has its 'confidence'.

That's right. The only stick to keep them honest that ultimately exists is a vote of non-confidence. I'm deeply disappointed in the opposition parties- all three of them- that they have allowed this gaming, this nose-thumbing to continue this long. It has become tantamount to seconding the misbehaviour, and approving the shift in priority from parliament to PMO. A pox on all their houses for that. They should all be deeply ashamed.

When it was failing?

The notion of shuttlebuses to successfully bypass Union Station is... absurd. The plan sounds suspiciously like 'We're going to close our eyes really tight, and hope it just goes away.'

Well the jumbotron is likely a rental... (and I don't know what tent you are ltalking about, unless you have equated 'pavillion' with 'tent') but maybe it's because a Tory communications officer told you to believe that it was all organized without error or waste, regardless of what the facts say.

It was planned to host about 2000 journalists. That's $1000 spending per reporter. (I should dust off my old credentials and see if I can join the party! A new Blackberry would come in handy, and maybe I could even get one of those special edition leather purses they are handing out.) It's a few hundred feet from a real lake.

The 'media centre' in Huntsville is a (shockingly expensive) new rink. The 'media centre' in Toronto... the $1.9 million fake lake extravaganza... is a one-weekend temporary installation inside the already long-existing and well-used Direct Energy Centre on the CNE grounds. At the end of the weekend, that 'media centre' will be stripped out in entirety, it's new, permanent location no doubt some landfill in Michigan.

The math works, Argus, if they average $1400/day each. I wonder where I can sign up for one of those jobs.