Madam Speaker, making the announcement in Toronto was of great pleasure for me on a personal basis.
This year Canada has such a great opportunity to host the world in a number of different ways. The Olympics were a great success, and now we have two very important international gatherings, the G8 and the G20. I am pleased that Toronto was chosen as the city and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre as the location.
With regard to the specifics, I have been assured by officials, who I consulted on the day of the announcement, that they are working with the community. In fact, the mayor of Toronto has indicated his support for the G20 being hosted in Toronto, and why would he not?
As one of the officials indicated to me, an enormous amount of media will be at Exhibition Place to discuss and to monitor what happens at the two meetings. The shot will be of the great city of Toronto in the background and the world can see just what a world-class city Toronto is. We will have the ability to lever off that in the future, just like the economic action plan is about helping communities not only now but building for the future.
Hosting something like the G20 in Toronto builds and highlights it now. However, for the future, it promotes tourism, hotel associations and so many good things of which we should be proud, such as the city of Toronto, where I worked for 10 years and I enjoyed it very much. I have many dear friends there. Having the G20 there, with such a high level of attention, working with the community, is incredibly important in terms of safety, security and logistics. We are committed to continuing to do that.