The reviews are in

Plenty of voices are chiming on the Cons' billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle - and none looks to be buying the Cons' spin for a second. Here's Don Martin with his own list of what could have been funded with the Cons' wasted billion:

No amount of righteous government bluster about living in post-9/11 protection paranoia, last week's bank firebombing in Ottawa or the precedent of hosting two back-to-back summits can explain how an $18-million security tab for the G20 in Pittsburgh last September, which involved 4,000 police, must balloon to a billion dollars in Toronto requiring 10,000 cops on the ground.

This is Canada, not Kandahar. In a London that has seen subway and bus terrorist bombings, the official security tab for its G20 gathering last March was $30-million.
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The tab for this security overkill could cover a third of the estimated international cost for the African family planning initiative, or pay two-thirds of Canada's 10-year humanitarian assistance program in Afghanistan.

A government that still hasn't delivered on its promise to beef up police forces could hire 2,500 officers for five years, buy a million advanced Tasers, pay a year's salary for 23,000 soldiers, procure a total of 366 LAVs or purchase five Black Hawk helicopters for every hour the leaders are yakking.

Jeffrey Simpson focuses on the Cons' needless siege mentality:

This siege mentality has now been used in preparing for the G8 and G20, with everyone fearing some major terrorist attack against the leaders, or against one of them. A corner of Muskoka is being turned into a militarized zone, downtown Toronto shut off, baseball games moved out of town, thousands of police and security agents mobilized, to say nothing of helicopters, planes and, for all we know, submarines in Lake Ontario.

The siege mentality then joins the explosion of staff that now accompany leaders to such events to create events of nightmarish bureaucracy. Canadians officials have been camped out in Toronto for almost two months working on the myriad of logistical details to make this extravaganza happen.

The whole thing is over the top and way too expensive for three days that bid fair to be a non-event in substance.

Alec Bruce nicely boils down the issue with a comparison to family expenses:

There is something almost poignant about federal office holders who believe they have to periodically buy their way into the good books of the international community. It's a little like watching a hardscrabble kid-made-good, but from the wrong side of town, cutting a fat cheque to a country club.

Oh, he's a member, alright. But, he'll never really belong.

Meanwhile the kids stay home wondering whether daddy's super-ego will forever eclipse their own social, educational and employment aspirations as the household debt mounts and the deficit between fond ambition and brutal reality widens.

And the Star features several strong letters to the editor, including this gem from David Hague:

If I challenged anyone to spend $1 billion with the proviso that once the money was spent there can be no evidence of the expenditure, the winner of the challenge would probably have hosted a G20 summit. Once the summit is over the billion dollars will have evaporated. Oh well no big deal as we just borrow the money from our children and grandchildren and let them pay the bill.