Evidence of meeting #37 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was summit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
That's right.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
--as a partner in the G-8 or as a member of the G-8 and the G-20 to host these things when it's our turn.
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
That's right. The G-20 was a first for us, so we actually purchased a second-hand table for that from the U.S. Department of the Army. They owned the table in Pittsburgh, so we purchased that, because we didn't see the ability to create something that large that would function for the G-20 here in Toronto in the time we had and also at that price.
November 18th, 2010 / 10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Great. I'm going to switch to some security-related questions. We've seen G-8 and G-20 summits in the past. These things have been overshadowed. Most of the media attention goes to.... You wouldn't even know what the leaders were talking about at the recent G-8 and G-20 meetings in Toronto. All you saw were people getting arrested, and you saw the media following the folks around the street who were smashing glass and so on. In other parts of the world, at some of these summits, people have had to be hospitalized; we've had security staff hospitalized. It's pretty serious stuff.
A lot has been made about how much security costs, but I don't remember any incidents of somebody being seriously injured or hospitalized. I know there were some minor incidents in which some security staff were a little bit banged up and stuff. Could you speak to that? Is there anybody here who can speak to whether or not, compared to previous summits, our security measures actually provided a safer environment than what other places have been able to offer?
Director General, Policing Policy Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I can refer generally to some of the testimony that I believe was made by Chief Blair with respect to what happened in Toronto, and his statements along the lines that to the best of his knowledge the injuries both to the police officers and to some of the citizens involved in certain activities were comparatively minor.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Thank you very much.
Again, because this is my last round, I'll say thank you to all of you for being here and for being prepared to be here today.
I have a number of kind of disjointed questions that have come up, so I'm going to try to get through them as quickly as I can.
I want to go back to Infrastructure Canada again. I know you allocated about $50 million for the G-8 legacy fund. We started to talk a little bit about the number of applications and the types of projects. Could you provide that to this committee, if you don't have it available right here and now? Could you provide a list of the projects in terms of the number of applications, the number of projects, and the types of projects there were?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Absolutely.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
That would be great. Thank you.
I just want to go back to something you said at the end of my questioning. We talked about the legacy funds, and it was a significant amount of money, $50 million. In addition to the $50 million, there was the FedNor money, as well as the economic action plan money, so we're stacking up quite a lot. There's a lot of money being spent here. But there was no legacy fund for Toronto. Was there a reason for there not being a legacy fund for Toronto? I'm just wondering, because we did hear from the restaurant association how concerned they were about lost revenues and damage to their facilities. Was there any discussion concerning a legacy fund for Toronto?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Again, as I pointed out earlier, and my colleague pointed out a few minutes ago, Infrastructure Canada was charged with delivering and administering the G-8 legacy fund.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
So there was never a discussion around what was happening in Toronto, probably because it was coming up so quickly, as we've often heard. But again, there was nothing allocated for them.
I want to go back. I just mentioned to you FedNor and the G-8 legacy and the economic action plan. I think I heard earlier that projects under each of them needed to have economic action plan signs in front of them. As a matter of fact, I had somebody report on how the sign in front of the carved lighthouse--which I think was in the middle, about 50 kilometres away from the G-8 site--was so big that they actually couldn't see the lighthouse. But unrelated to that, we do know that for those economic action plan signs, the signs had to be tracked and erected before payment was made. Was that the same for the G-8 legacy fund?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Did we track signage? Signage is common. Governments of all stripes going back in time have always erected signage to demonstrate to taxpayers where the money is being spent. So the fact that we had signage is not unusual.
Liberal
Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Operations Branch, Infrastructure Canada
That's correct, but it also specifically noted on the economic action plan signs that these were “G-8 improvements”, so they were very much linked to the G-8 site.
I want to just clarify one thing. There was nothing in our agreements that precluded the payment of bills prior to the erection of signage.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Okay. So it was a little different from the case for the economic action plan.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada
Also, if I may, budget 2009 was essentially the economic action plan budget, so this money was in that budget.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Okay. Thank you very much.
I want to go back again to DFAIT. As a homeowner and having purchased china before, I want to go back to that.
The glasses that you bought for the G-8 Huntsville, were they local? All this china, or pottery I think you've called it, was that all logoed with “G-8”, or was it left plain?
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It was left plain.
Liberal
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
That's right.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Because of the dollar value of this and because dollar values were accruing on the whole G-8 project or G-20 project, one or the other, did you ever consider renting?
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Yes, I think they looked at all kinds of options, but we also wanted to highlight some of the local artisans and their work. That's why the decision was made to use Lindgren pottery.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
That is being held for the next summit or for other projects, but was nothing retained from previous summits?
Director General, Programs, Summits Management Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Not dishware, no.
