Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight on a question that I raised in the House of Commons relating to the G8 and G20 summits.
We have been raising issues relating to the costs of the summits, especially at a time when taxpayers are hurting so much. Some of the costs of the summits are still unaccountable. Some of the decision-making was questionable at best but deplorable most likely, especially when we consider things like the fake lake and the gazebos in the middle of nowhere. Costs were exceedingly high for policing.
What we have been asking for is accountability because Canadians saw the photo opportunity of the G8 and G20 being made into a circus for the government, especially since it was held in Toronto where those costs were significantly inflated.
What is important here is that the government borrowed money for this and we will be paying interest on it, which will be a significant cost.
When we look at ridings like mine, Windsor West, where there is high unemployment, we really need to question the government's decisions on this. The fact that Canadians will continue to foot the bill for that and pay the interest on it is unacceptable, especially when people do not have employment insurance improvements.
A lot of Canadians in my riding would have done better in their lives if they had actually had the two week waiting period for employment insurance waived as opposed to the billions of dollars lost on the summits.
What is important is what we get out of the summits at the end of the day, and the government really did not get anything of it. There are many media reports right now about whether or not these are even purposeful anymore.
One of the things that is important to point out is the cost of a whole series of things, but one of them is the costs for a series of vandalisms in Toronto that took place at 40 different stores in the downtown Yonge Street business improvement area, which the government will not help with. About $750,000 worth of repairs need to be made.
I am familiar with some of this because in Windsor we had the OAS come in at one point. The city was reassured by the federal government that we would get all our expenses paid but that was not true. We were left with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and increased charges.
Years later, I remember touring our police station and seeing skids full of tear gas and other types of equipment that was no longer necessary. I believe at the end of the day we ended up actually selling that to another jurisdiction that was going to have one of these events in its riding.
When we look at the example of South Korea and its projected $25 million in security costs and our security costs of around $676 million, we have to wonder where the accountability is.
We do know there are a number of different costs that have yet to have been accounted for. We still have no details on the $100 million that the OPP had available to it. Where is the accountability? If the government says that it will be tough on crime, that it will be tough on ensuring there is accountability for taxpayer dollars and that it will be open and transparent, why can we not get all these figures? Why can we not have disclosure?
If public money is spent, surely there should be a great deal of accountability for that. We have seen improvements to the accountability of other types of departments, including the office budgets of members and so forth. We now have greater disclosure than ever before, which is an important improvement.
I would ask the parliamentary secretary where the value is out of this? Where is the accountability?