Government Operations committee  Okay, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here this morning to talk about my former office's role--at the moment, I am between assignments, so I don't in fact have a specific assignment--in coordinating the security budget for the G-8 and G-20 summits. To begin, let me say a co

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, I can only comment with respect to the costs associated with security. I think we're mixing up different issues here. There was an estimated cost of about $930 million, including $50 million in contingency costs, but that was a budgetary estimate. An amount was also

Government Operations committee  At this point we don't know what the final security costs will be. In some cases that is because the numbers haven't come in yet. For example, the province in respect of the Ontario Provincial Police and also Toronto city and Huntsville are in for some money, but they have to sub

Government Operations committee  That's right.

Government Operations committee  I don't know what their expenditures will ultimately be. We had a sense of what their estimated budgetary expenditures would be, but until they actually submit their costs, we won't know precisely what it was.

Government Operations committee  I don't know precisely when that will be, but in the case of Ontario and the City of Toronto and Huntsville, it will depend on when they actually submit those costs, and the auditing of those costs, which is required under the program.

Government Operations committee  No, I don't think any expenditures are accruing, but the final accounting hasn't been done yet.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, on the $523 million, I don't believe a final number has been announced, although I think there was a story in the newspaper to that effect. Whether that's accurate or not, I don't know. In fact, the numbers for security were higher. I think the $523 million was only

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, in respect of security spending, which is the only part I can comment on, infrastructure spending was not part of the security budget. It's not included in the $930 million, so you'd have to go somewhere else for those numbers. We weren't responsible for those. In

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, Contemporary Security won the contract. It's my understanding that in fact the contract was conditional on their securing the requisite authorities, and in fact they did acquire the requisite authority to operate in Ontario before the event.

Government Operations committee  I have been asked to comment on that in the past and I would say the same thing I have said before. The reality is that different countries account for the amounts they spend on those events in different ways, and some countries.... Canada is probably, and I assume it's to our cr

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, that's not what I said at all.

Government Operations committee  That isn't what I said at all, Mr. Chairman. What I said was that different countries account for things in different ways. In some cases it can be as simple as how many police officers you have in the jurisdiction. In the case of the U.K., they can bring all of the police office

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, I think there's a misunderstanding at the base of the question. There was a number, which was bandied around in a number of newspaper stories, I think, that suggested there had been a budgetary amount of roughly $179 million. Perhaps it was because it was in a commi

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, let me just deal with the question of why not use the Canadian Forces. The suggestion has been made on a number of occasions and I have responded in earlier interviews once or twice to the question. The use of the Canadian Forces in situations where you'd have arm