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G8/G20 cost nearly $858 million
Below estimate, but still a boon doggle, opposition says
By NORMA GREENAWAY AND MIKE DE SOUZA
- Taxpayers are on the hook for almost $858 million to cover the costs of the G8 and G20 summits -a figure that is about 25 per cent lower than originally estimated, the government said yesterday.
Under fire for months over the hefty costs associated with hosting the two global summits in June, the Harper government released a thick binder detailing how the money was spent.
The fine print listed such things as $20,776 on a sole-sourced contract for ice sculptures; $86,638 for zipper pulls and lapel pins; and $23,476 for street banners in Toronto.
At a briefing for reporters, government officials said they were confident the final tally for the summits would be close to the $857.9 million reported in the documents.
The figure is $275 million less than the original estimate of $1.1 billion.
Opposition MPs scoffed at the prediction, but said that even if the costs remain at the level the government is now projecting, Canadians paid too much.
“If it’s not a boondoggle of $1 billion, it’s going to be a boondoggle of $857 million,” Liberal MP Denis Coderre told reporters yesterday.
The bulk of the total -at $676 million -went to security costs for the G8 and G20, in Toronto and the Ontario resort community of Huntsville respectively.
Other miscellaneous expenses include $35,500 for parking at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport; $160,000 on cameras; and $104.95 for a wall map of Toronto.
NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair said he was skeptical of the government’s accounting and the timing of the documents’ release.
If coming in under budget was such good news, Mulcair asked, why were the spending details dropped on a Friday afternoon, when MPs were leaving Ottawa to spend a week back in their ridings?
“Normally, on a Friday afternoon (before) a break week, the government only comes out with bad news,” he said.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office defended the numbers -what he called an “unprecedented” example of transparency in releasing the line-by-line account of spending by 26 departments and government entities.
“We do owe that to the taxpayer,” Andrew MacDougall said, adding that the government is confident the numbers will hold up.
He said the government has nothing to apologize about over security costs. It has an “obligation” to ensure a safe and secure environment for such international gatherings and there is no way around those types of expenses.
The RCMP put in the largest bill, at just less than $329 million, followed by the Public Safety Department, at almost $274 million, and Foreign Affairs, at $123 million.
Officials said there might be a few bills yet to come, but they consider the $858-million figure solid.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service spent a total of $2,009,000 as of Sept. 30, but declined to provide details of its spending because it said the information was classified.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/cost+nearly+million/3786974/story.html#ixzz14oeASwv9
Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/cost+nearly+million/3786974/story.html