How Will Harper Fight His Way Out of the Most Expensive 72 hours in Canadian History

The New York Times ... yes, the New York Times ... has published an article about our overkill on security for the summits that nobody wanted, except Herr Harper.

His plan was to sing his own praises about his handling of the economy, while hoping nobody finds out about the 125 billion dollars worth of "rotten paper" that Jim Flaherty bought up on our behalf. He calls them sub-prime mortgages. Most in the financial world are just calling them "rotten paper".

I'll bet Harper whimpered after hitting the punching bag. It's a good thing he's not really boxing, or he'd probably bite his tongue off.

The latest government estimate is $897 million for three days of summitry. That comes to about $12 million per hour, or a total near what the government spends per year in the war in Afghanistan. “The cost of these summits is completely out of whack and extravagant and exorbitant,” said Don Davies, a New Democratic Party member of Parliament. “This might be the most expensive 72 hours in Canadian history,” Mark Holland of the Liberal Party was quoted as saying.

Canada’s security expenses are several times larger than those of other recent summit meetinghosts. The security costs for the Group of 20 meeting last year in Pittsburgh, for example, was about $95 million, slightly over a tenth of what Canada is spending, according to a study by Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer. Until this weekend, the highest security cost for a Group of 20 summit meeting was $345 million for the 2008 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, the report said.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy is planning to spend 1/10th of that amount next year.

With any luck Harper won't be there.