Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the hon. member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl had to say, and once I sifted through the nonsense to get down to a few kernels of truth, the rebuttal is pretty straightforward and pretty easy.
It is certainly not the first summit ever held in Canada, certainly not the first summit ever held in a major city. I understand that the hon. member is new to this place and maybe does not have a full range of knowledge of her Liberal predecessors who actually were in government for a good many years in this country and held a number of summits. So perhaps she should go and check the history books.
The bottom line here is simple. Canada was proud to host the world's most influential leaders at the Muskoka 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario, on June 25 and 26. We were equally proud to then host the meeting of those who lead the world's most influential economies at the G20 Toronto summit on June 26 and 27. At both summits, Canada led pragmatic, focused agendas, bringing member states together to forge common solutions to key issues of global importance.
This was the first time that these summits were held back to back. In addition to the visiting leaders, some 8,000 delegates and 3,500 journalists came to Canada from every corner of the planet for these meetings, and let me remind the member opposite that the G8 leaders met in a relatively secluded area while the G20 leaders convened 225 kilometres away in an urban setting. While these meetings shared core resources and personnel to the degree possible, each location had separate and specific considerations for organization, security and logistics.
The latest estimated cost of hosting both the Muskoka G8 summit and the Toronto G20 summit was $1.13 billion. That includes $183 million for organizing two summits, $675 million for providing security for them, and other related costs.
I would agree with the hon. member on one issue that she raises; that is, $675 million for security is a lot of money. However, what would we do if we would not have spent that money? Is the hon. member suggesting, first of all, that Canada not take its rightful place in the world and host these types of meetings? Or is she suggesting that we simply do not provide security at a meeting where we have the 20 most influential economies of the world present? We live in a world that simply does not allow that. This is no time to ignore our responsibilities as a nation and not provide security for world leaders.
These amounts have been allocated. They have been looked at. We have heard debate in the House. We have heard the questions answered. The reality is that if we are going to take our place in the world, if we are going to be a world leader, if we are going to take our place in the G8, if we are going to participate in the G20, then unfortunately, because of the security involved, these meetings cost money. They will cost money regardless of where they are held in the world.
They can come up with all kinds of false numbers and they can cherry-pick something out of that and say, “You could have done this with that money”. Absolutely we could have, but that does not take our responsibility away to provide assurance to world leaders that when they visit Canada, they will have a safe environment, and that we will be able to deal with the important items on the agendas that they have before them.
Rather than criticizing the government, she should be praising the government for doing its job, for doing the job that it is expected to do and taking our place among the leaders of the world.
