G8/G20 Price Tag Not Out Of Line

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, has reported that while the billion dollar plus pricetag for the G8 and G20 summits this week is staggering, it is NOT as out of line as the opposition claims. The non-partisan PBO (although Page is seeming to be becoming more and more politcal) says that the much-touted bills for other G8 and G20 summits are, as the government has insisted, are wildly unreliable. For example, the pricetag of $18 million for the Pittsburg summit does not include federal costs, national guard costs, or military costs, rather only taking into account the city of Pittsburg's costs. The fact is that we don't really know how much most other summits have cost as other governments have not been nearly as forthcoming as the Conservative government here has been. And yes, there may be unprecedented security but just watch the news coverage and you'll see the leagues of activists, provacateurs, protestors and anarchists who's insistance on demonstrating against everything necessitates this very security. Do you think if we did not see thousands of whiners fly into Toronto from around the world, perhaps we wouldn't need to spend a billion on security?