Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is convinced that these summits are important, but the costs should be reasonable. We would like to know what should be considered reasonable in the expenses submitted because $1.08 billion is a huge amount of money. It is 10,000 people being paid $100,000 each. I imagine they started working a long time ago and will finish well after the summit is done.
I realize that some money will be spent on things that will last. As one colleague stated earlier in the House, there are surely some things from the Olympic Games that could be reused.
To correct my colleague, I believe the cost in Quebec City was $100 million, for all forms of security. That amount provided security to 34 heads of state during the Summit of the Americas held in Quebec City.
I am wondering when the Prime Minister and the government are going to tell us that there were extra costs for all sorts of things, including incompetence, I imagine. That has a price and, in practical terms, it is more costly than competence. The government is trying to scrimp on competence, but that just drives up its budget.