Canadians are starting to get a clearer idea of where $1 billion in taxpayer's money is going for the G20 and G8 Summits, and the government can expect some grumbling.
On Thursday, it was learned the temporary security fencing going up around the "red zone" in downtown Toronto is costing $5 million.
Torontonians are already experiencing summit-sized hassles due to the fence construction, with commutes along Queen's Quay taking more than twice as long, drivers told CTV Toronto.
Besides the $5 million for fencing, $1.1 million will be used for billboards and backdrops for the summits.
Canadians have been taken aback by the $1.9 million being spent on a "marketing pavilion" aimed at foreign journalists, including $57,000 for an artificial lake.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff dubbed the artificial lake "Lake-waste-my-taxes" during question period Thursday.
"This summit could have been modest, it could have been oh, so Canadian," Ignatieff said. "Instead it's morphed into some kind of monster."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the majority of the money spent on the G20 and G8 summits is going towards security.
"The cost of these summits in this age is very expensive because of the security demands -- (security is) well over 80 per cent (of the cost) in ours," Harper said.
On CTV's Power Play, New Democrat justice critic Joe Comartin called the spending controversy a product of "the inexperience of this government and real ego-stroking on the part of the prime minister."
He suggested that the biggest problem has been time constraints to plan the meetings. Offering to host the G20 as well as the G8 summit left "nowhere near enough time to prepare for this, to plan in a prudent fashion."
"It was just a horrible mistake from the very beginning," Comartin said. "The government of Canada is now a laughing stock right across the globe."
The G20 summit in Toronto takes place June 26-27. The G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ont. takes place on June 25. The two events are projected to cost $1.1 billion, excluding costs from the disruptions they will cause in Toronto and Huntsville.
Former RCMP inspector Bill Majcher also said the public bill for the international meetings was due to poor government decision making.
"Security in this day and age is a motherhood type issue," he said on CTV's Power Play. "So in the name of security, budgets aren't the same consideration as they once were."
"I think what happens is that you get a lot of what I call armchair experts in Ottawa who are making decisions that maybe aren't the best ones."
One example, he said, was the decision to house the G20 summit in Toronto's bustling financial district, rather than on the city's relatively isolated CNE grounds in a quieter part of the city.
"The CNE would have been a much easier place for the police to put a perimeter, to harden the security, so they could have relatively uninterrupted meetings," Majcher said. "But decisions were made in Ottawa at the political level, and they chose to have it in downtown Toronto so the security considerations skyrocketed."
