Federal Government Prefers Food Tasting Over Tuition Cuts

There are a few iconic things that happen every year that always remind me that summer has finally arrived; the first day to break the 20^oC mark, the day after the May long weekend where the local Shoppers runs out of aloe vera, and the day when Toronto officially enters some sort of crisis that manages to anger the entire city.

From June 25^th-27^th, Toronto and Muskoka will play host to the G20 and G8 summits respectively, gathering the most powerful bank executives, finance ministers and nation leaders from across the globe. Toronto is no stranger to hosting events of this scale, nor are its citizens strangers to the crowds, traffic and the general sense of chaos that comes with them.  What isn’t sitting well with the general public is the tab for the anticipated security for the three day event that is being footed by the federal government: a grand total of $1 billion.

First off, who is all of this money supposed to be protecting? G20, also known as the Group of 20, was first established in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990’s as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors. Its formation was foreshadowed at the Cologne Summit of the G7 in June 1999, but was formally established at the G7 Finance Ministers’ meeting on September 26, 1999, officially superseding the G33, which itself had already superseded the G22. The G20’s membership consists of representatives from advanced and emerging economies from across the globe, with goals to bring stability to the financial markets and promote economic cooperation.

The first meeting of G20 leaders took place in Washington, D.C. on November 14-15^th, 2008, where they produced an action plan that outlined measures to stabilize the global economy in light of the then recent onset of the recession. The leaders outlined the importance of rejecting protectionism and introduced coordinated stimulus packages that collectively constituted the largest support program for the financial sector in recent history. A follow up meeting happened in London on April 1-2, 2009, where the leaders continued their work and committed to a historic pledge of $1.1 trillion US to restore credit, growth and jobs in the global economy, which included a $750 billion commitment to new resources for the International Monetary Fund and $250 billion to support trade financing.

Another follow-up type meeting occurred in Pittsburg on September 24-25 of last year, where the dedication of the G20 was extended to beyond the assumed eventual end of the current economic crisis. The G20 will meet again in Toronto and Korea this year, with the summit in Toronto Scheduled for the 26^th and 27^th of June, and a later meeting in Korea planned for late November. The agenda for June’s meeting includes plans to follow through on the group’s commitments from previous summits as well as plans to take action to build a future of sustainable and balanced global economic growth.

Now, the first question that popped into my head while reading up on this group is, how in the world can a group of 20 people single-handedly turn around the entire global economy, without the help of Steve Jobs? Essentially leaders that meet at these semi-annual summits then return and lead various ‘working groups’ which are then focused on various economic ventures that cover everything from financial safety nets to climate change financing.  Cooperating groups include organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which allow for the G20 to attempt to essentially ‘regulate’ global economic activity.  Although its intentions appear somewhat positive, it still too soon to truly understand or anticipate the end result of their work.

The second of the two giants descending upon the GTA is the G8, or Group of Eight, a forum for the leaders of eight of the world’s most industrialized nations to find common ground and cooperation on current global issues. The G8 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and in addition to regular communication throughout the year, leaders from these nations hold an annual summit to discuss their current issues as well as potential action plans.

The G8’s origins date back to the 1970’s during the oil crisis that plagued the world’s largest economies, with a meeting between leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States occurring in 1975 where they made plans as to how to deal with the oil crisis.

Canada later joined the group in 1976 at the Puerto Rico Summit hosted by the US,  and Russia became a full-fledged member at the Summit in 1998. The European Union was given observer status at the summit in 1977 so as to allow the European community as a whole to be ‘in the loop’ with the G8’s decisions.

Canada will be hosting its 5^th summit from June 25^th-26^th in Huntsville, Ontario. For those of you not familiar with Ontarian geography, this is essentially cottage country. The specific patio or dock where this Summit will be hosted still remains confidential.

G8 summits are chronically plagued with world class protesting by various activist groups who feel that their voices and opinions are not being heard by these world leaders, including Greenpeace, Make Poverty History and Golfing Anarchists. Similarly negative attention is being directed towards the G20 meetings as more and more people are becoming uncomfortable with a room of secondary leaders and bank execs deciding what to do with trillions of dollars of the world population’s money.

This historic attention to both summits is the reasoning behind the astronomical security bill previously mentioned. Organizers for both Summits are going above and beyond your typical SWAT team riot control and pedestrian barriers, with security measures for the three days including recruiting manpower from the OPP, RCMP, and Canadian Forces, as well as the Toronto and Peel Region Police, countless road closures, aviation lockdowns, and even food testing for every meal served to the delegates and their accompanying posses.

The federal government is covering these costs, regardless of how high they may actually climb the day of, which isn’t sitting well with taxpayers, or politicians for that matter.

Instead of blindly criticizing Harper for agreeing to pay for this outrageous security bill, most citizens and cabinet ministers are offering suggestions of where this apparently disposable $1 billion could be better spent.

These suggestions include:

• Three years’ worth of vastly improved health facilities for women and children in developing countries
• 11,000 new construction jobs
• Lift all seniors out of poverty by increasing the guaranteed income supplement
• $1,000 tuition cuts for every student in Canada

All of these suggestions are both possible and highly ironic, considering the typical theme for these G8 meetings is national and global improvement. NDP MP Olivia Chow explains that for that amount of money, “Canada could pay one-third of the costs of the millennium development goal and save the lives of over 10 million women and children by 2015.” Apparently making sure that no one pukes from the fish is a much higher priority.

What a major component of these costs stems from is the poor decision making in organizing this summit. Both events are essentially being held in the Greater Toronto Area (if Huntsville isn’t considered part of the GTA now, it’s only a matter of time until it is) which is not only the most populated region in Canada, but it is also the most opinionated.

The extreme diversity that Toronto allows for activist groups for every thought and opinion to form and thrive, which is precisely what they are trying to protect these world leaders from. The barren tundra of say, Iqaluit, may not be as appealing, but I can almost guarantee that at least half of these protestors won’t be willing to show up to state their case, especially since most of them don’t believe in wearing fur.

What the most baffling thing is why these group insist on having these physical gatherings so frequently. Have they never heard of Skype? With the nations represented at these Summits boasting about their industrial and technological advances over the past few decades, these leaders still insist on hopping on their 747-sized personal jets and flying to the designated meeting location, or at least to their stretch SUV limousine that will drive them there.

I wonder if climate change comes up in any of these meetings? Environmental impacts aside, the point is that the main danger arises from putting all of these world leaders in the same room, which doesn’t necessarily have to happen in the first place. There is more than enough technological capability for these types of meetings to happen while each respective leader remains in their home country, which cuts security requirements exponentially. Now, any ECE kid will probably pipe up that online security for such communications would most likely be shaky at best, and information from these meetings will probably leak faster than the newest BlackBerry model, but considering these delegates are making titanic decisions on behalf of their entire country, isn’t a little bit of transparency a good thing?

The disappointing part of this is that the public outcry against the government’s spending is coming a little too late; with less than a month before both Summits, there’s little hope for any budget trimming to occur.  All that’s left to do now is dream of cheaper tuition as you sit in stationary mid-day traffic while a European finance minister is escorted  by half of the entire RCMP to their sanitized afternoon snack.