Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Nickel Belt.
It is nice to have the opportunity to speak to this motion today. It relates to a hot-button issue that is hurting the government in the coffee shops across this land: the out of control spending on security for the upcoming G8 and G20 meetings in Huntsville and Toronto later this month.
If one were fortunate to have heard Cross Country Checkup this past weekend, one would have been able to pick up on the overwhelming outraged voices at the escalating costs of security for these meetings. Many of the callers were overcome by sticker shock with the huge sum that security in Canada's biggest city for these events will cost. Some callers detailed what items could be purchased or what measures could be pursued with such a vast amount of money. Others spoke of our record deficit and the lingering effects of the economic crisis.
A very few were completely supportive of the cost of security for these events, while others admitted that there needs to be spending on security for these events but felt that perhaps this too had snowballed out of control under the government's obsession with George Bush-style security concerns.
That is probably closest to our opinion. We are not saying that there should not be security for these events. We are not saying that there is no reason whatsoever to have these meetings. Our heads are not stuck in the sand on this issue but they are not up in the clouds like the government's either. One could say that we are not drinking the Kool-Aid that seems to flow freely over in the government lobby. That would be a reasonable way to characterize our position on today's motion and the issue of security at these kinds of events.
Perhaps it is merely a matter of perception that separates us from the Conservatives. We do not see terrorists around every corner or fall asleep at night worrying about some bogeyman-fueled crime spree either. Conservatives look at people who do not share their opinions and see the worst in these people. How many times has the Minister of Public Safety stood in this place and gone on about terrorists and petty thugs?
To hear the Conservatives speak, one would think there is a terrorist cell in every neighbourhood across the land waiting to lash out and send our lives into disarray. To listen to the Minister of Public Safety try to justify the incredible cost of security for these meetings, one would think that we are constantly under threat from these unsavoury individuals.
This is the hallmark of the current brand of the Conservatives. They are great at recognizing perceived threats that allow them to pursue their agenda and spread the public's money around to their supporters. In this case, it is for those in the private security business, the people who rent them the security fencing and provide the private security guards. They too share the view that we are just not safe.
However, the government will not protect us from real threats, such as the threat to our health from the eroding environment. It will not protect our communities in a meaningful way when they are left decimated by terrible policies in forestry or laid to waste by foreign owners who have no respect for the Canadian way of life that built companies like Inco.
For the majority of people in my constituency, this expenditure for security is yet another sign that the Conservatives are primarily interested in investors and not citizens. It is a government that will go out of its way to clear the path for any investor, to let them trample rights and long-standing covenants in pursuit of the only virtue Conservative seek: profit.
If people want to buy a company and change everything in the process or if people do not like the pension plan, they do not need to worry. They do not have to honour it. They can just lock out the employees or close down the operation, like Xstrata did, and sit on the resources until they can find people to work at slave wages with little or no additional compensation.
Those are the kinds of outcomes that are a result of the meetings that we are spending $1 billion to protect.