How come the government can afford to spend $2-million to build a fake lake but can't afford to provide First Nations reserves with clean drinking water?
Total Summit spending costs could reach as much as $2-billion, with a $1.1-billion tab for policing alone.
"Whether we are talking about a $100,000 gazebo, a $200,000 welcome sign, a $300,000 toilet, a $400,000 steamboat refit, $20 million for fiddlers and flowers, or a sidewalk to nowhere that is 84 kilometres away, the wasteful spending of taxpayers' money by the government for 18 hours of meetings is seemingly endless," Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner told MPs. "But now, la pièce de résistance, there is a $2-million phony Muskoka lake for journalists."
The Harper government is working hard to get out the message: That $1.9-million fake Muskoka lake being built at the Toronto media centre for the G8 and G20 summits is actually much more. It's a whole "Experience Canada Alley."
The project (just the Muskoka lake backdrop) is being built by the Toronto company Lord Cultural Resources, which specializes in museum-style exhibits.
Its project-management services, for consulting local groups in Muskoka and Toronto, designing the project and subcontracts, will cost about $407,000. Labour on the project will cost $398,000. And then there are materials for the three parts: $208,187 for the oasis and lake, $218,000 for the bridge and $292,000 for the cityscape.
Meanwhile, as of May 31st, 2010, there are 118 First Nations communities across Canada under a Drinking Water Advisory.
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A question of priorities, Mr. Harper?
If I had a billion dollars I'd buy a big dome and big lock. I'd drop the dome over their meeting and lock the whole lot of them inside their fence and wouldn't let them out again. We could toss them Kraft Dinner over the fence every other day, and give them water trucked in from their phoney lake.