Open Government

Right now, the polls for all Parties are so bad that a coalition would have to be formed to control Parliament. The Conservatives have seen their support drop nearly 10 percentage points in the past 9 months and the Liberals seem mired in the mid to high 20's. If one or more of the Parties try pulling a snap election in the fall, they do so at their own peril. Canadian voters may be disengaged from the political process (with only 58.8% of registered voters picking up a pencil and marking an "x' in 2008) but we are still very connected with the idea that spending $250 million on yet another minority government is a colossal waste of finite taxpayers' dollars. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

Here's an article from the Toronto Star back in November 2009, just before Toronto was designated as the G20 summit city: "Toronto would be ready to host the G20 summit of world leaders if Ottawa chooses to move the meeting here, says Mayor David Miller. Speculation has grown this week that the event will be moved here from Huntsville, because the rural Ontario town cannot handle the security and hotel needs of the delegations. Even though such a gathering would bring heightened security, road closings and possibly large groups of protesters, Miller said Toronto would be able to handle it. "We're not going to turn into an armed fortress," he said Friday. Toronto is a major conference-hosting city that has just opened the new Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place meant to hold meetings of this scale, he said. "If the G20 is here, we will be known all around the world. We are a place that can host the world because we have the world here," he added." It certainly sounds like it was a package deal - Ottawa and the city were both behind it. Thank God for cached pages on the internet. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

Here's what David Miller had to say back in November 2009, just before Toronto was designated as the G20 summit city: "Toronto would be ready to host the G20 summit of world leaders if Ottawa chooses to move the meeting here, says Mayor David Miller. Speculation has grown this week that the event will be moved here from Huntsville, because the rural Ontario town cannot handle the security and hotel needs of the delegations. Even though such a gathering would bring heightened security, road closings and possibly large groups of protesters, Miller said Toronto would be able to handle it. "We're not going to turn into an armed fortress," he said Friday. Toronto is a major conference-hosting city that has just opened the new Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place meant to hold meetings of this scale, he said. "If the G20 is here, we will be known all around the world. We are a place that can host the world because we have the world here," he added." I guess Mr. Miller is not prescient. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, all the mainstream media seemed interested in covering this weekend was the melee in downtown Toronto. CBC was showing the same old tired video loop of someone climbing a tree with a video camera, someone smashing and kicking a store window and flames leaping from a police car after a demonstrator does a dance on the hood. We heard nothing about what (if anything) had been accomplished at the G8 meeting that was already over and the legitimate demonstrators got an absolute minimum of coverage. The coverage this weekend says a lot about Canada's media establishment and their reportage. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

On the upside of the whole billion dollar security boondoggle, it was reported by CBC last evening that security personnel in Huntsville made two arrests yesterday. One was for possession of marijuana and the other was for shoplifting. Thank goodness there was heavy security presence in the area at the time. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

My concern is that the suggestion of a post-summit post-mortem of the expenditure will have no value; our tax dollars will have already been spent and it will be too little too late. Why aren't laws changed so that a certain level of expenditure automatically requires an examination by the PBO some time prior to the money actually flowing out of the doors of Parliament? This would not be dissimilar to how things work in the real, corporate world. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

Of course it caused barely a ripple. It's indoors and both black fly and mosquito free like all well behaved Canadian lakes. http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/