Cost of the G8/G20 summits? $1.2 Billion
Outcome of G8/G20 summits? 7 of the 8 G8 nations are cutting their deficit by 50% and cutting their debt to GDP ratio. i.e. they are cutting spending by billions upon billions over the next few years. It’s as simple as that.
My message to those who criticize the cost of the event is this. It was a massive world stage with over 80% of the world’s population represented including hundreds if not thousands of reporters who will go home and tell their populations that spending is getting cut. This means that the commitment to cut spending was, in essence, made in front of over 4 billion people on the planet. This creates a massive pressure on the leaders to meet that commitment.
And cutting spending is a conservative trait.
Think of the billions that will not be spent now that this commitment is made. PM Stephen Harper may be criticized for the event cost. His government might get raked over the coals. But as a fiscal conservative I am ecstatic at what the long term benefit of these summits is.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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My friend, I agree with much of what you write in general and even some of this post in particular but I find it hard to believe there was not corruption in the amount that was blown. Chretien, one of teh worst PM’s ever, once declared about the so called Sponsorship Program that ‘a few million may have been stolen but it was worth it to save the country’. A structure built on a foundation of lies and thievery is seldom worth it and the premise (that the thievery was necessary) may not even be true.