The first Toronto summit in 1988 received far more favourable publicity around the world than the more recent Toronto summit did. The point I made was that the Canadian coverage of the Toronto summit was more negative than the international coverage.
If we compare global media coverage of G-20 summits, the only one that received substantially positive treatment was the second summit in London. As we move forward in the coverage to the Seoul summit and the previous one in Toronto, there were very few references to the violence in Toronto. So part of the negative image had come off.
As for improvements that could be made—and I applaud your constructive instincts—I've come to the conclusion that, given the global challenges G-20 summits face, they are just too short. A good portion of the short time they have is taken up with the leaders sleeping. This lack of time has a number of negative impacts. It prevents this group of disparate leaders from coming together and bonding as individuals to face a common cause. I think we saw that in Seoul.
There were a number of issues that we had hoped Toronto would address: IMF reform, Basel free banking resolutions.... These were largely deferred to Seoul because there just wasn't enough time once the big job of containing the euro crisis through the macroeconomic message was achieved.
I deeply regret that the peaceful protest held a few days before the summit by my friends in the environmental community was not publicized. It didn't catch the attention of the country, and it didn't move G-20 governors to build on an option advanced at the previous summit at Pittsburgh—the fossil fuel subsidies phase-out. If we could just do that on time, we would help to meet our climate change control challenges, further the cause of human health, and, according to the OECD, save the hard-pressed taxpayers of the world over half a trillion dollars in subsidies. This would be a win for fiscal consolidation, for the environment, and for health. That's the kind of thing we want our summits to do.