My apology, Mr. Speaker. I thought it might be the Prime Minister calling to tell us the numbers had increased even further but it was not.
There is a whole other issue of security that we have been trying to deal with in my area of responsibility and that is with the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers. It has been requesting $50 million from the Government of Canada for about two years to enhance its security around its 1,500 operations spread right across the country. Those are 1,500 businesses that sell fertilizer and chemicals and they are doing their best to secure those operations.
In the United States, which we have to compete against, the U.S. government is assisting its agriculture retailers, who sell fertilizer and chemicals, to put up security fences, security lights and secure those operations so that no one can break in, take materials and use them as explosives or for illegal or terrorist activities.
In Canada, however, where we have to compete with the United States, CAAR, which we met with at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, is asking and has been asking for a number of years for $50 million but both the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister of Public Safety have refused to deal with the issue. CAAR was outraged and sent a letter to the Minister of Public Safety about its outrage over this billion dollar boondoggle. It cannot even get a meeting or have a discussion on the fact that it would put us on a level playing field with the United States relative to the cost of securing fertilizer and chemicals in this country and would increase our public security as a nation in terms of those smaller operations and some quite large for that matter as well.
For those 1,500 CAAR operations scattered right across the country to find out that the government is blowing a billion dollars in terms of the summits when CAAR cannot even get a discussion on the matter, is absolutely insulting and it should not be.
The costs of the summits do not fit with the costs associated with other similar summits. The last one was held I believe in Great Britain. The one that was held in Japan cost somewhere over $300 million. The costs of the summits do not compare with what other nations have spent on these summits or even ourselves within our own country.
The summit that was held a number of years ago was put by the former Liberal government in a somewhat isolated location and could handle the number of people who would be there. It was much easier to secure. It was planned from the first instance in a better way to make better use of funding and provide better security and less disruption to the economy overall.
The bottom line is that Canadians have every right to be outraged at this billion dollar boondoggle on the part of the Conservative government which just adds further to the debt of this country. While it is doing that, it is even ignoring other areas where it should be enhancing security, as I mentioned a moment ago about the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers which would protect ordinary Canadians in their homes and give them a sense of security that illegal acts would not be happening with fertilizer companies and the use of fertilizer and so on to cause damage to their economy and to their homes.
The bottom line is that the government must come forward with the details and explain how it has mismanaged this situation so badly as to get into this overexpenditure of dollars that looks to us as if it is just to enhance the ego of the Prime Minister.