Evidence of meeting #45 for Public Safety and National Security 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.
External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
Yes, definitely along the same lines, I received a phone call that I had missed, so I called back and was assured that my charges had been dropped.
One of the weirdest things was that I did not receive my camera or iPhone until most recently, about a month ago. It was held as being considered evidence. I have now received everything back, which is—
External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
Intact, yes.
Liberal
External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
Yes.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Do you still have no idea of what the charges really were dropped for, of why they were dropped?
External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
At this time, I specifically don't, no. Around the issue of why our charges were dropped...?
External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
Definitely that there was no form of evidence to put forward on Grayson or me.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
But as Madame Mourani said earlier, one of the things that had been said to us was that there were no valid subpoenas that had been issued to the police, so that's why they dropped the charges. They never said that they actually didn't find any reason.
Go ahead.
Executive Chair, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
I was just going to say.... I didn't include it in my brief, but on that note, when the police officers came in, someone did ask them if they had a warrant. The officer replied to the individual...I believe it was Daniel Vandervoort, who is the external coordinator for the graduate society at the University of Toronto. They said that they did have the right warrant and then they proceeded to arrest everyone.
Executive Chair, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
I personally did not see it, but he did hold up a piece of paper to Daniel.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Have you ever been told if that was a proper warrant? Did you ever find out?
Executive Chair, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan
I have not been told. I never found out.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Well, you have 10 seconds for a statement.
Thank you very much.
We'll now move back to Mr. McColeman.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for coming here today. We've had some very good evidence presented here today, and frankly some new things, which we welcome. We welcome hearing some of the more positive aspects that have come out.
My first question is to Mr. Kirton. In your role at the University of Toronto, your analysis group does scientific analysis and comparisons from across these conferences worldwide?
Co-director of the G20 Research Group and Director of the G8 Research Group, University of Toronto
Social scientific analysis, which some of my colleagues doubt is as scientific as the work they do, but yes. We have a heavy focus on the G-8 and now the G-20 summits.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Okay. Because my time is limited, I just wanted to put that up on the board. Having been involved in graduate programs myself and knowing some of the parts of coming up with the analysis, you're in very good company.
I really want to tell you that you're in the company of security experts, the Auditor General, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who all have confirmed that the security costs are reasonable and that direct cost comparisons that the media and the opposition have been making to other summits are disingenuous and false. So I appreciate the clarification from the University of Toronto and the type of institution you represent that the costs were appropriate.
Secondly, I find it quite interesting that my colleague, Mr. Holland, disagrees right out of the gate with your objective analysis. He says in his opening comments that obviously we disagree with a lot of what you said here today.
I can say this also about what Mr. Kania brought up, which is the cost issue. Just to clarify on that issue, his leader, Mr. Ignatieff, said to the people of Huntsville...and I will quote from The Huntsville Forester on September 17, 2008. He wanted to make it very clear that “when we are the government of Canada, the next G-8 Summit will be held at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville”. He said, “You heard it from me: the G-8 Summit will be in this community when we form the next government”. Now, it would seem that the Liberal leader supported Huntsville when he thought it would boost his electoral prospects, and now he's against it in order to score cheap political points.
The new information we have here today--you know how Ottawa works--is that we as a committee get to look at the benefits of what you have brought to the table, Mr. Kirton, in terms of long-term branding. Again, as a past businessman, I understand the importance of branding and the importance of that in terms of a larger world market available to Canada. I understand the economic benefits around strong branding and how that basically has a way of attracting business or pushing business away.
Could you just expand a little more on what you meant by your comments on the branding benefits? I think you cited--and you might also want to include this--Korea's analysis, because you said you had not done a firm analysis on that, but you certainly have some projections from Korea.
Co-director of the G20 Research Group and Director of the G8 Research Group, University of Toronto
Thank you very much.
On Korea, it is an institute affiliated with the Government of Korea, which naturally is noticed by we independent scholars. They did estimate that part of the benefit was that their Seoul summit attracted, first 10,000, and then the subsequent estimate was 15,000, visitors.
Typically that's when most people do the benefits--as if it were just another service club convention in the city. The analysis we've done selectively over several years really looks at the international media coverage, at whether it is favourable, neutral, or negative, and then attaches how much money you would have to pay to buy that. Of course, the high point for us was Peter Jennings' coverage on ABC News in 1988.
I think more importantly than that...and I did make reference to the Toronto terms on debt relief. That is a phrase that is talked about in development circles to this day. So it is the city, but the city associated as a sharing and caring place. In the case of Toronto, we haven't done comparable international media analysis, but we do know from selective work following the Toronto summit that the image of Toronto was not as firm as for the other great cities where summits had been held.
By the time we get to Toronto, it was not regarded as one of the world's leading financial capitals. So that is one of the opportunities to show. If the summit works on financial stability, the core founding mission of the G-20, then there's a consonance between what Toronto is now and why the world needs Toronto and its summit for that.