G8, G20 cost 1Billion

[Smallc]

once every 20 years for the other.

Once every 10, actually. There will be 2 G20s every year.

[dre]

You're just pissed because you weren't invited!

You might have a point there.

The funny thing is, I bet that the folks at this meeting will be preaching fiscal restraint and debt reduction for G8 states But hey! If you can snort coke off some hookers tits between appointments thats pretty good I guess.

[eyeball]

Hosting the things is a requirement. Once every 8 years for one, once every 20 years for the other.

How would Canadians have reacted if Harper had announced he is pulling Canada out of the G8 and G20 because Canada could not afford to host the events every 8 or 20 years? Do you think Canadians would have been a mite peeved?

In hindsight I think they'd be relieved. Maybe next time.

[eyeball]

I didn't say experts from this government, I said experts and this government. It's impossible that $30M and $18M is a true reflection of all of the costs.

So what's the real skinny on these numbers anyway? I see people are still waving them around like BP waves the flow-rate of it's un-controlled gusher around.

Again I ask, what is the point of signing agreements with other countries that can't even be trusted to come clean with their own people? What possible benefit to us is there in using liars to put a shine on our country in what is now being billed as an opportunity to showcase ourselves to the world?

[nicky10013]

I didn't say experts from this government, I said experts and this government. It's impossible that $30M and $18M is a true reflection of all of the costs.

You're right. I believe this is just for security and not all the costs. Yet, no matter how you try and square it, we're paying exponentially more JUST for security and not counting everything else. So how could a dense and heavily populated city like London do it for THAT much cheaper than Toronto?

[Smallc]

You're right. I believe this is just for security and not all the costs.

That's simply impossible. You cannot pay 10K police officers overtime for that...let alone house them, feel them, equip them, etc. You can't do constant overflights with helicopters and jet fighters for that....you can't have ships parked at sea (or in this case, in the lake) for that. The costs reflect very direct costs only. Canada is making public all expenditures related to security.

I mean really, do you think that the US would allow their president to go to a meeting in another country with the lax security that $30M buys? You can see from our costs that the true figures are far more. I suppose you can choose not to believe them.

[William Ashley]

Hilarious the security budget for the 3 day conference is more than the Toronto Metro Police Forces annual operating budget. Costs for the forces 2 days of involvement is more than 1/8th its annual operating budget for the police force of the largest city in Canada!!!

Make much sense how the police forces total operating budget can equal two months of policing - in two days, with only a 50% force size increase?

Edited June 11, 2010 by William Ashley

[Molly]

I mean really, do you think that the US would allow their president to go to a meeting in another country with the lax security that $30M buys? You can see from our costs that the true figures are far more. I suppose you can choose not to believe them.

I'm thinking that we could manage to skin by on a frugal $300 million, though. After all, the number being proposed actually exceeds what was spent on security for the Olympics!

[Smallc]

I'm thinking that we could manage to skin by on a frugal $300 million, though. After all, the number being proposed actually exceeds what was spent on security for the Olympics!

The numbers is very similar to the number for the olympics, and I would expect that. It's a different kind of event, but security really goes on for just as long, and it is much tighter. I an only imagine what the cost would have been had they planned for an extreme threat level.

I don't see where you get your $300M from, quite frankly.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Smallc

[William Ashley]

I'm thinking that we could manage to skin by on a frugal $300 million, though. After all, the number being proposed actually exceeds what was spent on security for the Olympics!

Comparing 1 over budgeted even to another doesn't help things much.

This should have cost $0 more, because all agencies funding should of been reflected in the departmental budgets - because they shouldn't have been "blindsided" by the event and should of had it in their program costs.

The 200 million originally budgeted should have been more than enough.

10 years in Afghanistan cost Canada 19 Billion.. or about 2 Billion per year.

A 3 day international organization summit cost half a years funding for the war.

How can a civil summit be costing 6000% more than fighting a war half way around the world.

It is absurd.

Edited June 12, 2010 by William Ashley

[Moonlight Graham]

The way the gov is handling the spending for this summit is indeed a massive joke. A billion for security, and now 2 million for a fake lake pavilion. These morons are starting to look like the Chretien Liberals, gun-registry style!

[Molly]

The numbers is very similar to the number for the olympics, and I would expect that. It's a different kind of event, but security really goes on for just as long, and it is much tighter. I an only imagine what the cost would have been had they planned for an extreme threat level.

I don't see where you get your $300M from, quite frankly.

$300 million is the next biggest number for any G8 at any time, from any source, that I had run across... but the truth is, it came from the same place virtually all of the estimates have come from: straight from someones ass.

You might expect that sort of cost, but I would not. If that truly is 'just what it costs to run a summit', then summits bloody well aren't worth the price tag- not to the host country, and not to the world.

It's not just unseemly; it's obscene.

http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/factsheet/factsheet_costs.pdf

Pages 2 and 3

Edited June 12, 2010 by Molly

[Argus]

So what's the real skinny on these numbers anyway? I see people are still waving them around like BP waves the flow-rate of it's un-controlled gusher around.

It's beyond me. The Toronto Police released their costs the other day, and I don't understand them either. For example, they say they'll spend $82 million for salaries of 5,000 cops and 900 civilians. I'm not a mathematical genius, but I do know that at $1,000 each per day for ten full days that works out to $60 million.

So wth?

Are these people getting $1,000 per day? Why? For ten full days? All of them? Why? And that still would only work out to $60 million, not $82 mlllion.

So wth?

[Molly]

The math works, Argus, if they average $1400/day each.

I wonder where I can sign up for one of those jobs.

[Topaz]

Here's some more info on the cost. This for the RCMP, they are renting up all the vans, cargo vans etc. in Toronto, to transport people their and for security. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/mounties-nab-rental-vans-for-g20/article1601684/

[Topaz]

Read the following link on the G20. Our finance minister said the reason for the billion $ summit is to tell the 20 nations to find ways to cut or reduced their defeit and debt!! How about not spending a BILLION $$$ on a SUMMIT!!! It's alway easy to spend other peoples money, and the Tories do an EXCELLENT job at SPENDING!! I like to know the total amount they have spent or are going to spend since coming to power. I bet its over 100 Bil. http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Cutting+debt+priority+Flaherty+says/3146825/story.html

[madmax]

The CPC are excellent spin doctors.

Waste is good waste when its them wasting our money. This is a great waste of money. Look at CPC MPs lining up and saying..

This is a great waste of money.

If roles were reversed, the CPC would be COUGHING UP A LUNG from screaming so loud about the waste and the boondoggle this photo op has created.

Everyone knows that the CPC are full of it.

Luckily for the CPC they have lost of it to throw around.

[eyeball]

Figures lie and liars figure. Which brings me back to a question I'm actually more interested in, where does our leader's spokespeople get off accusing other leaders of being liars and if it's true why is Harper making deals with them in secret meetings behind closed doors?

[DrGreenthumb]

Wow, I was at a wedding last night, and so many people were bitching about the G-20 costs, and especially the 2 million dollar fake-lake facility. I even heard it from people who normally don't follow politics, and even quite a few who I know are Tory partisans. Of course I did what I could to help stoke their anger. A couple of hard core Tories were so beside themselves they claimed they would not vote in the next election, but I didn't really believe them. I kept reminding eveyrone that a billion is a THOUSAND MILLION.

[Argus]

Wow, I was at a wedding last night, and so many people were bitching about the G-20 costs, and especially the 2 million dollar fake-lake facility.

It's a media centre, actually. It's jointly funded by the feds and the Ontario Liberal government and will remain as a permanent facility. I don't have a problem with that. Most of the people at the wedding were probably just pig ignorant.

[scribblet]

Agree with Argus, the opposition forgets to mention all of that, 1.2 million was on a pavillion promoting Canada.

Edited June 13, 2010 by scriblett

[daniel]

...1.2 million was on a pavillion promoting Canada.

We already knew that. I think Harper wanted to over-spend just to show off to the rest of the G20 that Canada is the only nation that has money to burn. They couldn't do that with the Gun Registry which was intangible but actually useful.

I wouldn't be surprised if Harper is late for another photo-op because he was peeing in the fake-lake.

Edited June 13, 2010 by daniel

[Argus]

We already knew that. I think Harper wanted to over-spend just to show off to the rest of the G20 that Canada is the only nation that has money to burn.

Leaving aside that no one has yet demonstrated exactly how money was overspent.

They couldn't do that with the Gun Registry which was intangible but actually useful.

It had no usefulness that I could see.

I wouldn't be surprised if Harper is late for another photo-op because he was peeing in the fake-lake.

Just cause you pee in swimming pools and lakes doesn't mean everyone else does.

[August1991]

It's a media centre, actually. It's jointly funded by the feds and the Ontario Liberal government and will remain as a permanent facility. I don't have a problem with that. Most of the people at the wedding were probably just pig ignorant.

Tornto needs another media centre? And what kind of media centre do you get for $2 million? (Answer: One in a tent.)

Agree with Argus, the opposition forgets to mention all of that, 1.2 million was on a pavillion promoting Canada.

Scriblett, what is terrifying with your argument is that you can justify any expense by saying that "the government is promoting Canada". Who is to know whether the money had any effect?

Leaving aside that no one has yet demonstrated exactly how money was overspent.

A billion dollars on these summits is overspending. Ordinary people in Canada know this.

----

The Liberals now have Youtube ads about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyV81TmT6L0&feature=player_embedded

I don't think the ad is good. There is no $64 hook, and it plays the man not the ball by arguing that the $1 billion is for Harper's ego. I think the ad should have just pointed out the astounding hypocrisy of a government preaching fiscal restraint yet spending money on this bureaucratic media circus. Moreover, this boondoggle strikes right at Harper's incompetence as a manager of taxpayers' money. He should have said no far more often.

For stupid quotes however, it's hard to beat Dmitri Soudas, Harper's press guy:

"The ad's premise is that the average Canadian can afford to spend weekends at the lake. An understandable assumption, no doubt, by someone who vacations outside Canada and owns a summer villa in the south of France," said Mr. Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas.

"What Mr. Ignatieff fails to appreciate is that the vast majority of Canadians do not own recreational property. This is just another gaffe that shows he is grossly out of touch with the lives of ordinary Canadians."

G&M

Gawd, Soudas says that most Canadians can't afford a cottage - so why the devil is Harper building a fake one in Toronto with our tax dollars? Maybe if governments didn't waste our tax dollars, we could afford cottages.

A couple of hard core Tories were so beside themselves they claimed they would not vote in the next election, but I didn't really believe them.

Greenthumb, I am one of those Tories. I am still livid about this. When I voted Conservative, I thought that I was voting in a government that would spend money carefully. I want a PM who will throw bureaucrats out of his office when they propose crazy schemes to promote Canada or gargantuan budgets to provide security. Both are bottomless pits, worse than a young bride organizing a wedding.

Politicians are supposed to keep the bureaucrats in check and clearly Flaherty and Harper failed at this public duty.

Edited June 13, 2010 by August1991

[Jack Weber]

Tornto needs another media centre? And what kind of media centre do you get for $2 million? (Answer: One in a tent.)

Scriblett, what is terrifying with your argument is that you can justify any expense by saying that "the government is promoting Canada". Who is to know whether the money had any effect?

A billion dollars on these summits is overspending. Ordinary people in Canada know this.

----

The Liberals now have Youtube ads about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyV81TmT6L0&feature=player_embedded

I don't think the ad is good. There is no $64 hook, and it plays the man not the ball by arguing that the $1 billion is for Harper's ego. I think the ad should have just pointed out the astounding hypocrisy of a government preaching fiscal restraint yet spending money on this bureaucratic media circus. Moreover, this boondoggle strikes right at Harper's incompetence as a manager of taxpayers' money. He should have said no far more often.

For stupid quotes however, it's hard to beat Dmitri Soudas, Harper's press guy:G&M

Gawd, Soudas says that most Canadians can't afford a cottage - so why the devil is Harper building a fake one in Toronto with our tax dollars? Maybe if governments didn't waste our tax dollars, we could afford cottages.

Greenthumb, I am one of those Tories. I am still livid about this. When I voted Conservative, I thought that I was voting in a government that would spend money carefully. I want a PM who will throw bureaucrats out of his office when they propose crazy schemes to promote Canada or gargantuan budgets to provide security. Both are bottomless pits, worse than a young bride organizing a wedding.

Politicians are supposed to keep the bureaucrats in check and clearly Flaherty and Harper failed at this public duty.

Now I know why the Con's don't want Soudas in front of the committee...What a clueless dufus!