Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

What you can do with a lot of money

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, September 23, 2010 7:32pm - 0 Comments

For a billion dollars, this country got to host the G8 and G20 summits. It also got the supplies necessary to organize a pretty kick ass rave.

The highlights include $2.8 million for rental cars for the RCMP; $1.4 million on communications “cabling;” and $439,000 on portable toilets. Then there was $14,000 on glow sticks and $85,000 for accommodation and snacks at Toronto’s swank Hyatt Regency hotel.

The expense reports tabled in the House today can be downloaded in three parts: here, here and here.

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  • Emily

    Well the police got a good deal out of it…lots of snazzy new equipment….Toronto got an armed camp, and worldwide coverage of that image.

  • madeyoulook

    It also got the supplies necessary to organize a pretty kick ass rave.

    I can offer, weather permitting, a really fun Saturday noon family barbecue with hot dogs from Costco on the town soccer field in early October. And all I need is 450 million. It's a steal. C'mon, it'll have juggling clowns! Inflatable bouncy thingys (no, no, not the local plastic surgeon's patients, I mean for the kids to jump on…)! And for only an extra ten million… diced onions for the dogs! Why, we'll even put up the "Action! Plan" signs over the soccer nets!

    Who's in?

    • BGLong

      Hah ! For that money you can also substitute a police car bonfire for fireworks … and for the
      kiddies maybe a Where's Waldo to find a Black Bloc among a bunch of accountants and car
      salesmen on their way home. Fun !

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      I want cotton candy.

      • madeyoulook

        Rots the teeth all to hell. Won't anyone think of the children?

        • LdKitchenersOwn

          Who said anything about giving the children cotton candy???

          I want cotton candy.

  • Emily

    Hmmm binoculars, cameras, sun screen, glowsticks, bug repellant, even plug-in little red lights for their cars.

    Did we buy them underwear too?

  • Mardie Wolsey

    $2.8 million….for RCMP rental cars…..let's say over a 20 day period……that's $140,000 per day……even at $150/day per car, that lets you rent 933 cars!! I can't believe this kind of crap happens! Which MPs own the car rental companies used?

  • Orson Bean

    The communications cabling was obviously rampant waste. People could have easily communicated via smoke signals and carrier pigeons.

    • Emily

      Or cellphone.

      • Orson Bean

        Or computer. Wait, scratch that.

        Anyway, Emily, as always, you're correct. I for one have never seen any electrical or communications conduit, wiring or cabling in evidence at any major public event that I have ever attended.

        • Emily

          Well unless you're on the Midway…no

  • LdKitchenersOwn

    The expense reports tabled in the House today can be downloaded in three parts…

    THREE PARTS.

  • John D

    hey, the kids tell me there are still raves ;)

    • Crit_Reasoning

      With that, Wherry officially joins the ranks of the thirtysomethings ;-)

  • Mike T.

    Plus the damage on the three or four cars that got torched.

    • tobyornotoby

      That was included. There were 930 other cars being offered up for the show but the actors playing the part of antagonists disappointed and only burned a few …

      • Mike T.

        oh, that was supposed to be a joke. I meant to say damage DEPOSITS.

        • Patchouli

          Dontcha hate it when you step on your own joke? With a typo? I hates that.

  • kfoxcan

    $3190 for a Panasonic fax machine? I guess they couldnt figure out how to use the scanners they spent many other thousands on.
    And this list of BS only accounts for $250 million of the $1.2 billion spent!
    The Tories are finished when Sheila Fraser's report comes out in the Spring. You can be sure they will engineer an election before then.

    • bennji1977

      I liked the bug suits from MEC, and this bad boy……
      http://www.resqmax.com/products.php – the Running Gear Entanglement System (RGES)

      Wonder who got to keep it after the weekend.

      • Jan

        Clement could certainly use it at his place. No more sending his wife and father-in-law into the water.

        • kfoxcan

          lol, nice one!

  • chet

    We could spend our money sending English speaking civil servants in completely English speaking regions, on year long French language training, to come back to their jobs and never speak French again,

    or, support an artist with a specialty in drawing single red lines on white canvass, because the world doesn't "get" his brilliance (and hence buy his art), but some government clerk decides we should "get" it,

    or a myriad other "progressive" spending programs,

    which, to discuss their being defunded, is literally taboo, and not to be mentioned in proper company.

    Now, back to making fun of spending money on RCMP assets.

    • Emily

      So now the choice is between your personal pet peeves and biases…..and a billion dollars on drek in Toronto?

    • tobyornotoby

      So you're saying we spent millions on bilingual radios when we could have had English only for half the price?

  • kfoxcan

    $57 million to one company. Aramark. I can hear the CEO's secretary now…. " Sir, there's a Ms. Fraser calling on line one, something about SummitScam"

    • Crit_Reasoning

      Aramark is Canada's leading food services and catering company. It's American-owned, though, so I'm sure that's plenty of fodder for criticism.

      • kfoxcan

        You don't see a problem with $57 million on food services?? Regardless of where the company's head office is located, $57 million to feed say 10000 guests and 10000 cops is $2850.00 a head!!!!!

        • Crit_Reasoning

          No, I think it's possible that the expense is 100% justifiable. If it's not, I'm sure the auditor general will pick up on it. I doubt there's any graft or corruption happening here.

          The Aramark bill probably includes meals for the thousands of workers who helped with the preparations in addition to twenty thousand police and tens of thousands of delegates. Three meals a day for tens of thousands of people quickly adds up.

  • chet

    I'm saying, that while progressives have no problems with the massive forests of spending on the "correct" type of programs,

    they're more than happy to chirp about the incorrect trees.

    But once again, they simply cannot see the forest through the trees.

    • Richard_S_Argent

      And yet there you are, on the previous message thread, defending the cost of the fighter jets because they're the correct type of spending.

      Fascinating.

    • JustinWordswrth

      Chets and Balances?

  • http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/ Open_Democracy

    Mayor David Miller was right all along; the G8/G20 Summits were good for Toronto particularly if you owned a hotel, ran a catering business or rented cars. The twin summits were like a licence to print money for those businesses. Unfortunately, if you were one of the businesses that fell outside the select few that received government contracts and had to close during the G20 Summit on Saturday and then had to spend time cleaning up your storefront on the following business days, you were out of luck.

    I'd like to see a list of the costs to businesses who were affected by the inactions of the security forces on the day of the G20 Summit. That would be even more interesting because those expenses hit Canadians right where they live.
    http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/

  • Stanley

    You should see what they did with my (former) donations to the Conservative Party.

  • Mike T.

    We could have funded the long gun registry until it needs to be the lazer gun registry.

  • wascally wabbit

    Heck – with that – we could have had TWO Federal elections – and had more than $200 million in change!
    No wonder Harper says we can’t afford an election right now!
    HE created the conditions for that statement!

  • Sigh

    Dear Aaron,

    I don't want to appear to be picky, but I believe that when "kick-a$$" is used as an adjective, it should be hypenated.

    Helpfully yours,
    Sigh

    P.S. when I posted this earlier, using your spelling of the term in question, I got deleted.

  • gar

    There is one thing about the Liberals they always recognize an orgy of of overspending but it is usually they are stealing it from the taxpayers.At least this money went back into the economy not the Liberal party pockets!!!!!!

  • Harbles

    Fun with math!

    One Billion = One Thousand Million

  • Dave

    Depending on where you live.

  • tobyornotoby

    We yawn at billions now, let me know when we have a scandal in the trillions …

  • Greg Arious

    If a wise and prudent liberal like Iggy would have been in power he could have just done the whole thing at the Zellers lunch counter.

  • Emily

    Oh I see….so the choice is between a billion dollars on drek, and the Zellers lunch counter?

  • kfoxcan

    A Zellers lunch counter- is that someone inexpensive to count lunches? Now that would have been wise and prudent considering they spent $80000 on boxed lunches.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/Ottawa_Centrist Ottawa_Centrist

    We all know Iggy would have served people…. people! He's a witch!!!

    Or maybe Iggy wouldn't have held it in downtown Toronto.

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