The Lavish Spending at the G-20 is Indefensible

Harper's goons are out in full force, trying to justify the lavish spending during the G-20 weekend from hell.

I'm sorry, but I've read the list and this kind of spending is indefensible.

- You do not need to spend $ 85,000.00 at the mini bar unless there's been an earthquake and that is the only available food source.

- You do not need to spend $26,661 for mosquito traps unless you are camping in the jungle.

- You do not need to spend $10 million on hotels for the RCMP because there was absolutely no need to have that many RCMP in Toronto.

- You do not need to spend $2 million for boxed lunches. Where in the hell were they boxed? (For those prices I'd want them flown in from Paris.)

- You do not need to spend $4.4 million to put up the security fence that went much further than it needed to, turning Toronto into an armed camp. The only thing missing was the barbed wire.

- You do not need to spend $333,831 for sunscreen, bug spray and hand sanitizer, unless you are travelling down the Amazon

- You do not need to spend $735,000 leasing furniture. That's nuts!!!

- You do not need to spend $439,186 on portable toilets unless the cops have the trots.

And how do you explain any of this?

$1.7 million for two food catering contracts
$22,403 on snacks from Pickle Barrel
$23,100 on thermal night-vision video cameras
$98,225 on sirens
$31,390 on flagpoles
$246,000 on a "living wall," such a row of bushes
$16,014 on plastic handcuffs
$13,061 on police notebooks
$107,748 on Nikon cameras
$55,432 on video cameras
$1,399 on memory sticks
$191,411 on antennas
$702,597 on two-way radio rentals
$232,036 on phone rentals
$207,900 on solar lighting
$138,446 on a digital-pen system

It's waste, pure and simple. A culture of entitlement. "Elite" politicians who can afford to be extravagant when it's not their money they're wasting.

This is indefensible.

The Irish Rovers do the G-20. Wasn't That a Party?

This is just like those weeks after Christmas when the credit card bills come in, as we are now learning just what more than a billion dollars was spent on, when we hosted he G-20.

80 million for food and lodging, including the Sutton place in downtown Toronto.

$ 282,412.43 for “geomatics requirement.” (the better to keep track of us my dear)

$315,000 for “high-end furniture” (?) (How good does it have to be when you're sitting around a "fake lake"?)

$2-million for an exhibit called “Invest in Canada.”

$334,000 on bugspray, hand sanitizer and sunscreen

$246,000 for a “living wall”

$85,000 for snacks

$14,000 for glow sticks

$31,390 for flag poles.

$34 million on telecommunications and electronics

$17 million for vehicle rentals and transportation.

$4.5 million for the security fence

$3.2-million single contract for shuttle buses

$45,000 on binoculars.

$1.2 million on condominium rentals

$930 million for security

But it was fun though, right? It's a good thing we were in recession. Can you imagine how much they would have spent if we actually had money in the bank?