HUNTSVILLE - The feds may be in for a rough ride when the final tally for securing the back-to-back G8 and G20 summits is released.
Already the cost for security for the summits has climbed to a reported $1 billion, a far cry from the $180 million Ottawa was predicting in April.
Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement, considered a top minister in Stephen Harper’s government, is credited for lobbying the prime minister to bring the summit here. When contacted last Thursday, he agreed the security costs were ‘huge,’ but deferred to the “actual minister in charge.” When pressed further, Clement repeated previous statements made in the media about the need for considerable security to protect the venues.
“Some people in the area were concerned that there’s too much security, but of course after the
incident in Ottawa, no one is saying that now. They — Continued on page A2
realize (an event of) this kind has to be secured for both the leaders, but as importantly, the public,” said Clement, who was referring to an after-hours bomb set off at a Royal Bank branch in Ottawa in May.
The group who claimed responsibility for the explosion has stated it would be present at the G8 and G20 gatherings this month.
Despite the fact that Huntsville and surrounding municipalities are seeing infrastructure money flow through to host the G8 here, Huntsville mayor Claude Doughty expressed concern about the related security costs.
“One of the ideals was that if the G20 and the G8 could be in the same place, we would’ve saved a lot of that cost,” maintained the mayor who stood alongside Clement last year while the G20 was announced to be taking place in Huntsville.
That announcement was quickly rescinded and the G20 Summit moved to Toronto. The feds said there simply wasn’t enough room to host all the leaders and their entourages in Muskoka.
“That was one of our themes, that it was much more cost effective to do it all in one place. So, obviously for reasons that no one know at the time, that couldn’t happen… and now the costs have skyrocketed,” said Doughty.
He added had there been enough accommodations for the G20, he would’ve liked to have seen the summit hosted here.
“Now instead of having to run two parallel operations … there’s a whole separate operation down there (in Toronto). It’s a huge increase in the cost. I’ve got to believe that the cost to secure Toronto would be greater than the cost to secure Huntsville. That only makes sense, so what that tells me is over half of that billion (dollar) fee is relative to Toronto,” he said.
Attempts to reach Public Safety Canada, which looks after the national security and safety of Canadians, for comments before press time were unsuccessful.