An idea: $1billion for writers, zilch for the G20
The billion dollars that Canada is going to spend on security for the G8 and G20 meetings next month almost makes one think the war on terror has been won — by Osama bin Laden.
Why is it that governments never have money for arts, culture or enhanced social security, but the sky’s the limit when it comes to spending on what I call “hi tech welfare?”
We saw it all through the Cold War. Billions of dollars allocated to engineering new weapons and building elaborate (and often unworkable) missile schemes, all of which gave jobs to the most comfortable and best educated in society — people who didn’t or shouldn’t have needed government hand-outs.
Now, during the War on Terror, we’re seeing it in the incredible over-reaction to every possible security threat. Each incident an excuse to ramp up spending, whether or not any benefit can be demonstrated.
It’s a beautiful situation, because if nothing happens we are lulled into the false belief that all that money was spent to a good purpose.
If we oppose such profligate spending, we’re told — as Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said of the Liberals — that “they don’t believe in securing Canadians or the visitors here.”
We need a Canadian writer with investigative skills for a made-in-Canada version of the British shocker, The Bumper Book of Government Waste, by Matthew Elliott (Ingram). It recounts how British taxpayers are being ripped off to the tune of five billion pounds a year in useless government spending.
Security for the G8 and G20 meetings was tabbed at $179 million in the budget in March. Now it’s reached $930 million. Half of that’s for the RCMP, including overtime and accommodation costs.
Let me suggest that the near billion-dollar shocker is only half the real cost. What about the cost (and inconvenience) to the private sector in trying to cope with this level of security in the middle of Canada’s biggest city?
The University of Toronto is closing down completely during the G20. Many firms are telling their employees to stay home. Some are offering their workers two-for-one vacation days.
There’s a raft of issues involved in this fiasco:
- The cost - clearly an obscenity, and it’s encouraging to see parliament’s budget watchdog Kevin Miller is going to quiz the government on its handling of the matter
- The site – Why put a G20 meeting in the middle of Canada’s biggest city, which poses all kinds of security problems?
- The need – Why have a G20 meeting – can’t they all videoconference? (The real work gets done by the “sherpas” — the aides who thrash out the agenda — before the meeting, anyway.)
The Harper government has this strange bent to spend recklessly on authoritarian measures — billions for new prisons that aren’t needed and now this huge security bill — while neglecting other urgent and pressing needs.
Why not a billion dollars for Canada’s writers to help tell our stories to ourselves and the world?
Not likely, but at least we’d get something of permanent value.
