Money well wasted
Opinion
Posted 2 months ago
The new Apple iPhone's coolest new feature is FaceTime, which allows people to make video calls to each other. If only this feature had been available during the G8 and G20 summits last month, we could have been spared the ridiculous television news footage of protesters destroying downtown Toronto.
Instead of finding out whether the meeting of world leaders resulted in anything concrete or substantial for their constituents, what we witnessed on television was footage of burning cop cars and masked men breaking windows and fighting with police officers.
The summits held this summer in Ontario—G20 in Toronto and the G8 in Huntsville—had the price tag of more than $1 billion, which is not chump change by any stretch of the imagination.
Most of that money, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has acknowledged, went to security infrastructure. So then, what was the end result of turning southern Ontario into a fortress?
World leaders decided that fiscal responsibility should take precedence in order to reduce their debts and recover financially. No offence, but I could have told them that for a lot less than a $1 billion. Last time, world leaders met to discuss climate change. From the slow steps taken to reduce our carbon footprint, discussing climate change is about all leaders did once they went back home.
In the end, as soon as the first brick was hurled through a window or the first cop car was set ablaze, all anyone paid attention to was the protestors and the violence.
Everything else, good intentions and all, was left by the wayside.
Instead of a summit on world issues, we got an up close and personal commercial on how security money gets spent.
What the Harper government proved with these summits was that if they spent a billion dollars on security, they would have to use it—a self-fulfilling prophecy of the highest order.
This of course begs the question: knowing as world leaders do that every time they meet, violence and protesters follow, why have a meeting like this at all?
By Harper's own admission, the colossal price tag of security was for preventing the "actions of a few thugs."
Doesn't that seem like a waste of money, especially when Europe and the U.S. are in the midst of a financial collapse that has a slow and long recovery period?
Imagine what that $1 billion could have paid for right here in Strathmore and the surrounding area? How about better schools, hospitals, increasing teacher salaries, and providing public works projects?
It's unlikely, but I would hope that in the future, the G8 and G20 leaders stay home and spend their country's money on their citizens.
Then, after spending that money on public works, leaders can connect to the Internet and hold an online meeting via Skype, a video conferencing service. It would cost practically nothing and they wouldn't even have to get dressed up for it.
